Apartment 667
by Redwood Manning
Summary: Sarah (22) works for a government company that makes sure little kiddies like you, don't know about the Underground. Who should happen to waltz back into her life but the big, bad, GK. But after losing to the girl who ate the peach and forgot everything, Jareth has his own problems. (J/S)
1. Coffee Shop Encounters

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belongs to Jim Henson._

 _Haiku's are hard. Leaf._

* * *

Prologue: Stuff you have to read for the story to make sense, despite the lack of J/S

Sarah pulled out another Kleenex and passed it to the girl opposite her desk, who snatched it up and dabbed her hawk-like eyes daintily.

"It's just... terrible, y'know? Life hates me," she honked her nose in a less dainty fashion.

Sarah nodded sympathetically, tapping a few things into the ancient keyboard on her desk. She got things like this ALL the time. Just last month a dryad had been sprayed with pesticide in Holland Park. That had been a troubling week to say the least.

"Do you want to share? I could look into it and see if the department can get you anything," Sarah attempted to ask professionally, trying not to remember the sickly green that woman had been when she'd come into the office. Then again, she was a tree spirit. She was probably meant to be green.

The girl raked her hand through her fine, blonde hair that probably hadn't been washed in months but still mimicked a shampoo commercial to perfection and nodded.

"It all started this week. I've been living in a flat with another fae, in the centre of London. It's been great. Heater's broken but the place is cheap, not exactly a silver palace but... I manage. Anyway, my room-mate, well, we're in a similar situation. We're both monarchs who have been evicted from our Kingdom and we're both really good looking... So I just assumed... I MEAN REALLY IT SHOULD BE THE TELEVISION'S FAULT!" She exclaimed, flinging her arms wide in an expression that asked, _'Why me God?_ '

Sarah was beginning to wonder the same thing. She hated it when that new reception lady handed over dramatic ex-monarchs for her to deal with. This bed isn't big enough. There aren't any servants to do my house work. What do you mean I can't drug people to get in their pants? She swore she must have done something to offend that Mandy lady in the past life, the way she gave her all the mundane jobs, and the list just went on and on and on! She'd rather take on a tree spirit that was tetchy about not being given organic manure any day of the week than a princess who watched to much _Bold and the Beautiful_.

"After all," she sniffed, "it was you people told me to watch the stuff so I would know how to act around the stupid mortals," she sniffed again, twisting her tissue in her hands. "Hot people always get together on the television! But it didn't work out... and now..."

Sarah got ready for the water works. Or potentially acid works. A little known and not so fun fact about the fae. Yes... some could cry acid. It bought a whole new level of dull danger to the job when you had to duck behind the desk to avoid getting your skin melted off every other day.

"And now he hates me!"

Sarah blinked. At least there had been no acid. She hadn't bought her umbrella into work today so it would have been a bit of a problem. Shifting that thought aside, was she getting what this girl had said right? He'd turned her down. No... that couldn't be it. This girl was drop dead gorgeous. Maybe they'd just slept together and now he found it too awkward to live with her. Still, she should ask just to be certain.

"He turned you down?"

The girl let out a wail.

Sarah seriously doubted this. The girl opposite her looked about her age. Maybe twenty-two, twenty-five at most, with a ridiculous mass of curling, buttercup blonde hair. Freckles sprayed across her luminescent skin. Even though it was the start of winter, she was wearing only a blouse and a tiny pair of shorts. Probably because she knew it made her legs look good rather than the fact she was struggling to buy new clothes. She'd basically walked out of a fashion magazine. " _Or a fairy tale_ ," Sarah grumbled, tapping another few things into her prehistoric computer.

The girl let out another screeching wail and buried her face in her hands.

"I've been kicked out! I've spent the past week living in a cardboard box out behind Costa's. He told the landlady I tried to sexually assault him! Just last night, the barista put all their recycling in my box. I had to sleep in a puddle of luke-warm mocha. All because he gets all uppity and says you can't force a person into a relationship by wishing."

Sarah's hands paused over the keyboard, "Is that all you did?"

The girl gnawed her lip, before smiling nervously, "I may have gone a little further."

Sarah tried not to roll her eyes as the girl huffed and tossed her head, flicking her tissue onto the desk. Sarah tried to hide a shudder after it left a glittery smear when she twitched it off her desk with a pen. She'd probably have to get the biohazard guys in later to pick that up for her.

Chris twisted a strand of hair anxiously. "O.K. Let me get some facts straight. I didn't know that mortals considered it sexual assault! In my kingdom, it would have been casual flirting and technically we're both fae so rules work a little differently."

"You sexually assaulted him?" Sarah said flatly. " _Time to call the cops methinks_ ," the little voice in the back of her head muttered. Sarah eyed the girl's rather long finger nails, " _or y'know_ ," the voice continued, " _maybe not the cops but those people that fetch feral animals and stick them in the back of padded vans._ "

"NO! I- Yes... Maybe? Please! I've only been here a couple of months! It's my first offence. REALLY! And I didn't give any of the fae world away. Please don't send me back home! I'll be handed over to the Republic and they'll chop off my head for the whole world to see. Please... I, I can't go back."

The girl clutched her hands together eyes glimmering with tears. Sarah sighed, she was going to regret this. She hastily tapped another few notes into the faithful old windows, letting it hum for a bit.

"I'll see what I can do."

The transformation was instant.

"Oh thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!" She squealed, jumping around the small cubical in a way that made Sarah dizzy just looking at her.

"Okay, well sit down and I'll just have to ask your name."

The mood dropped faster than when a dog realises it's in the car to go to the vets.

"I can't do that."

"Then I can't help you," said Sarah, folding her hands in her lap decisively.

Taking a deep breath, the girl plopped back into her chair, twisting a long strand of hair between her fingers.

"Mynameiskrystalmoon," she mumbled quickly.

"What?" Sarah asked jerking her head. "I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it for me?"

"My name..." she took another deep breath, "is Krystal Moon. With a K. Moon."

Sarah bit her lip to try and hold in a smile but ended up snorting instead. What was her middle name? Wait, she wouldn't even try to figure it out.

"Your name is Krystal Moon?"

This started the wailing again.

"I KNOW! It's dreadful. I sound like some horny, pubescent elf named me. Why couldn't my parents have chosen something tasteful like Charabella or Eleline?"

Sarah let a cheeky grin slip. Yeah, Charabella was so much better.

"Can't you just change it?"

Krystal's lips trembled.

"I have to keep it the same in case my parents make it over the border. I don't want them left in the mortal world without a contact. They'd get hit by a truck in the first ten minutes."

Sarah clucked kindly. Another common occurrence in her job. Fae that hadn't seen England since Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, Queen Elizabeth the first that is. Fae road kill was pretty hard to explain. The office were so thankful they could now use the excuse, " _We're so sorry. They're not right in the head. They were just trying to catch Pokémon."_

"Last here in the Middle Ages? Don't worry, we get that a lot. I'll just put you down in the records as Chris, so when people look, they'll think your name is Christine or something."

The newly anointed Chris clapped her perfect little hands together.

"Thank-you so, so, so much! If there's anything I can do to repay you! Anything at all, just ask!"

Sarah groaned and rolled a crick out her neck. She'd been working too long in this cramped little cubical and once she'd finished her nine hour shift it was back to the grungy, little apartment with a chain smoking roomie and a landlord who was constantly threatening to raise the rent because her 'surprise' little pets kept messing things up for her.

"Any chance you know a place where a poorly payed government worker could find a place to live in the city? Preferably someplace that doesn't mind goblins chewing through the electrical wires every other month."

Chris' eyes lit up.

"I know just the place! You can move into my old apartment and I can move into yours! It'll be like wife swap but with apartments!"

Sarah mulled over the thought. Aside from the fact that it was obvious she watched too much television, the fae had made it pretty clear before that she'd been used to sleeping in ditches so really her cruddy apartment was a step up from that. TWO steps up even.

"My apartment's probably even further from the Silver Palace then yours."

The Fae sagged with relief "That's fine, I don't care."

"What about your room-mate? Won't he mind?"

"What? No! He'll love ya!"

Sarah shifted uncomfortably in the office chair. Usually when a fae used the word love it involved orgies. Lots of them.

"Well, as long as he's not got grabby hands or anything..."

Chris let out a delicate, tinkling laugh. "I wish! I've never seen him with a girl since I've been there and the landlady says she's never seen anyone floating about. No, he's the perfect gentleman. Or gay. But perfectly gay," she sighed wistfully, bronze eyes shining. "Perfectly perfect..."

Sarah shuffled some papers loudly on her desk, "Great, alright then! When can I meet this guy?"

"He's coming to Costa's next Wednesday to talk about getting some of my stuff from the apartment. I could introduce the two of you then."

Sarah felt a grin tug at her lips, while Chris scribbled down the address, "Perfect."

The fae started twirling her hair between her fingers again, "Yeah, he is."

It was drizzling outside, but Sarah had quickly learnt that it was, in fact, always drizzling in Britain. Except WaIes. It was always pouring in Wales. The gentle sunlight that was shown in all the best episodes of _Midsomer Murders_ was in fact a lie.

Not that Sarah really cared. She kind of liked the idea of rain.

Tugging on a green turtle neck, Sarah thought about the points leading up to this moment. In Sarah's mind, she'd had her brief encounter with the Labyrinth about seven years ago. It seemed like from that moment on a whole new world had been revealed to her.

Sarah would see goblins peeking at her from behind the sugar. On her way to school, she would catch tiny, blue-green women splashing about in the duck pond out of the corner of her eye. One time, Sarah had walked into a sign post after seeing what appeared to be a red scaled dragon curled around a petrol station.

Not only had she been extremely afraid that the whole place would blow up, Sarah also had to explain to Karen how she'd gotten a black eye the week before prom.

She'd stayed in America until she had hit eighteen but after more than a couple of 'incidents' she had found that the British were generally more accepting of the excuse, " _I'm sorry. I must have been off with the fairies._ "

So after doing a couple of University courses in Manchester for four years, she decided to stay. It wasn't until about a year ago when Sarah had picked a goblin up from oncoming traffic, when life had gotten interesting for her.

A woman, named Bea, had seen the little scenario and pulled her aside. She then told Sarah that she was from a 'special branch' in the government who dealt with the mystical side of things, keeping it from the public eye.

Six cups of coffee later, Bea had explained the fae world was having many issues with its democracy at the current time, not dissimilar to the French revolution, and hundreds of refugees were flooding to their world looking to start afresh.

No less than another four coffee meetings later Sarah had begun to work for the 'special branch'. Aside from the high probability that if she let slip to anyone that there were over a hundred magical beings living happily in London, then a strange man with no mouth would come and dislocate her knee caps for her, she was really enjoying the work. Over the past year she had helped various fae move into their new lives, found homes for centaurs and pixies and even helped prevent the end of the world once. That had been a tough week at the office. England leaving the EU made it that little bit harder as well. Some people not in the know would tell you it was because the government didn't want any more immigrants and it was true. But it wasn't the good people from Lebanon the government were trying to keep out.

Honestly with the rate of fae/human marriages going up just in attempts to get that sought after permanent residency card, it was no wonder Sarah's 'IN tray' was always over flowing.

Two years in America, plus four years in uni, add the previous year. Altogether, would make it logical if it were the early nineties, except it wasn't. It was at least two decades after that. Possibly more. A familiar dull ache settled in her chest. Her family didn't even know she was alive. She'd asked Bea to check the records and according to her Sarah William's had disappeared in 1988 but here she was now. New century, new millennia.

The files also said that there wasn't much investigation behind her disappearance and sudden reappearance. Just that she was known to be mentally unstable and had disappeared on a day like this. A Wednesday. The thought alone made her want to throw up. Sarah knew why, and if she had her way, she'd get those barstards for what they'd done to her.

Wednesday had been tea party day. It was burnt into her memory just like the cigarette burns in the carpet courtesy of her room-mate. It was the day she would steal biscuits from the kitchen and her friends would all come through the mirror and they would catch up, talk, play scrabble. Except one day, they just hadn't come. She'd waited by the mirror for hours. By the time the men came, her tea had been stone cold.

"Snap out of it," she told herself, looking sternly at a mirror. " _It won't help you if your new potential flat mate thinks you're a mopey weirdo_." She hastily dragged a brush through her hair shaking all bad thoughts from her mind. Good. Now she was presentable.

Pausing at the door, quickly grabbing an old burgundy scarf and an overcoat, she was going to need more warm clothes if the heater was broken.

Sarah arrived at the Costa's a good fifteen minutes early. She wanted to seem punctual. Chris appeared not long after wearing basically the same as the other day but with the addition of a pair of gum-boots. " _Maybe she had an internal heater or something,_ " Sarah thought, looking at her long, pale legs.

Sarah listened to Chris's woes as she flipped through an old book, nodding and making the odd agreeing noises at the right time, while sipping her drink.

The fae girl had just started to explain how she'd gotten a job at a local bakery when she let out an audible gasp. "It's him! He's here! He's come!"

Sarah lifted her head and nearly spat out her drink.

Goblin King.

" _Okay,_ " she told herself, " _stay calm._ "

Goblin King! Her mind screamed. Goblin King! Goblin King! Goblin King!

"Sarah," Chris posed like a game show girl presenting a fabulous prize. "This is my ex-room-mate Jared Williams."

Several things happened all at once. The Goblin King, or Jared or whatever he was calling himself, leant forward to shake her hand, Sarah leapt backwards to avoid the Goblin King's extended hand, chair clattering deafeningly behind her, drink splattered all over the floor and long forgotten book.

"YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!" She yelled deafeningly, to his shocked frozen face.

There was absolute, heavy, painful silence as the whole cafe watched them nervously.

"Oh good!" Chris beamed, seemingly oblivious to the awkwardness of this situation. "You've met before."

* * *

 _A/N: Evening y'all. This is a little idea that's been buzzing around my mind for a little while now, so here I am, putting it out there._

 _Many, many, many thanks to my new beta._

 _Sarah being young in the modern day world will be vaguely explained after an interesting incident in an alleyway._

 _Pot brownies will be made for those who review. Joking. Don't settle for anything less than cocaine, as dear uncle Dave would have said back in the 70's._


	2. 21 jump street

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belong's to Jim Henson._

 _Batman and Robin._

* * *

Sarah frowned moodily. She had burnt her tongue on her coffee, banged her knee on a table, spilt coffee all over one of her favourite books and now she was standing, in the pouring rain, with a skimpily dressed fae and a Goblin King, who after stealing her baby brother, had thrown a snake at her. Amongst other things.

"I really don't know what the big deal is," Chris said, nonchalantly flicking a strand of wet hair out of her face.

Sarah turned to face her, ignoring the seething Goblin King behind her. "He is a LITERAL cradle snatcher!"

The Goblin King, or whatever he was, scoffed. "Sarah has neglected to mention that she is the actual definition of a home wrecker."

Sarah was steaming. She'd seen him again for less than three minutes and already she had been kicked out of a cafe.

"You," she fumed, prodding him the chest. Immediately she regretted it because it was incredibly firm. Goddamn him and his good looks, he did this on purpose.

It made her boil to know that he was completely and most definitely aware how good he looked in a suit and button down shirt " _Tieless obviously_ ," she thought with an eye roll, and she hated him for it.

"I bet my best nylon tights you set this up, didn't you? You sick jerk! What do you want with me, _huh_? Revenge? Because you have punished me enough."

"Have I?" he asked with an incredulous sneer.

"You-you-" Sarah flustered angrily. She'd had this argument in her head many times before going to sleep. "You put me through thirteen, oh no wait, ten hours of HELL."

She began to tick off on her fingers. "You DRUGGED me. Worse still, you got my trusted FRIEND to drug me! You threw a SNAKE at me. You sent a giant metal machine after me not ONCE but TWICE. The Cleaners and that giant metal guy! HE WAS _SWINGING_ AN AXE! I COULD HAVE DIED! You took time away because I upset YOU, you drama King! You sent an ARMY of DRUNKEN GOBLINS after me. Drunken goblins, WITH CANONS! YOU put me in the BIGGEST MENTAL MINDFUCK of a room and then had the _audacity_ to start a _music numbe_ r about how I'd been cruel to YOU. Worst of all YOU STOLE my BABY brother. You, Goblin King, are nothing more than a manipulative little fairy puff who'd sell his own mother's soul for a box of eyeshadow!"

Sarah was staring him down with the best of her ability. He was so bad she'd run out of fingers to tick off. Right now, Sarah would rather have shared a cave with rabid bats or even that tree spirit (who smelt like toxic pesticide) than even think about being his flat buddy, which would no doubt turn into fuck buddy considering how fast he had taken things in the ballroom. If that had even been real.

The king sneered. "I'm manipulative? Ha! That _is_ a laugh coming from the likes of you."

The Goblin King batted his eyelids melodramatically, throwing a hand over his heart. "Oh, I'm practically a slave, boo hoo! How about I make a _selfish wish_ about my baby brother? Yes I'm going to wish him away but later on I'll say you stole him because you're just an evil baddie. What was that Mr. Goblin King? Oh no I didn't _mean_ my wish! I just enjoy being contrite. An undefeated Labyrinth? I bet it's a piece of cake! Let's turn all the loyal citizens against the king so I can get through easily! A centuries old crystal ballroom! Smash it up! Oh wait, is that a chair? Smash it with a chair, and then when we've smashed that, how about we smash their robot guard? Ooh, how about we smash the whole god forsaken Goblin city while we're at it! In fact, do you know what would _really_ rub it into that poor Goblin King's face? Let's smash up his beautifully architected room. Haha! Oh what fun! You have no power over me! Ho hum!"

Sarah's mouth had fallen open and it felt as if someone had slapped her. Her fingers were just itching to wrap around his neck and throttle him. In the back of her mind the weird wrinkly guy from _Star Wars_ was muttering " _Good, good. Let the hate flow through you_." The only thing making this moment even worse was the rain dripping down her neck.

"Well," said Chris cheerfully, both parties suddenly remembering the other girl was there. Sarah shuffled awkwardly away from the Goblin King, who she'd gotten rather close to during the, ah... heated conversation. "I think we have made some definite improvements. You're both upset but you can move on. Jareth, you'll get a new room-mate who won't make passes at you! Sarah, you're going to be closer to your work and me, I'll be out of here! It's a situation that works for everyone. You guys chat some more, I'm going to get a curry."

Sarah watched as her last hope of getting out of there pranced off down the street. A challenge considering the gumboots. Sarah felt eyes watching her and decided to closely examine her scarf. " _Great,"_ she thought, fingering a moth hole. Now she couldn't use Chris as a shield. _"That girl was literally no use at all."_

"Sarah..."

She made a non-committed noise, picking at some rather interesting maroon lint balls she had found. Her deep fear was that Jareth knew something about what had happened after that Wednesday she hadn't found her friends, and he was going to hold it over her head. Or worse still, he wouldn't have had a reason for not helping her.

"Sarah, look at me."

With a similar reluctance to what a dog has when being pulled through the vet's door, Sarah raised her head and looked at Jareth.

A lazy grin curled about his lips, hands slung casually in his pockets.

"You need an apartment?"

Sarah felt herself nod a little. " _Maybe he didn't know anything,"_ she tried to convince herself. _"He might have left the Underground by then."_

"I need someone to help pay the rent."

Sarah nodded again. That's why she was even considering this. Because she needed to know what was going on down there. Because she needed a connection to the Labyrinth.

"Excellent! I will see you Saturday then."

He slowly strolled off looking like some sad nineties music video. It wasn't until he was long gone that Sarah realised with some annoyance that she had no idea where he lived.

* * *

Her boss Bea had eyes the colour of chocolate and skin the colour of coffee. She frequently wore white cotton happy pants to work. Bea however, was not happy with Sarah at the moment.

"I am _not_ sure about this baby girl."

Sarah shrugged "Can you get me his file or not?"

Bea pulled a face, clicking away at her computer. "Fine. It's cool. That's alright. Don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about, Bea. That's me. The one who don't know nothing. Sweet Jesus. Fae men are good at this. You gonna move in and then next thing you know. Bam. You got his next heir to the throne."

Bea paused in her ranting and peered at the screen, frowning.

"'Kay, I found him."  
A pixelated image of a disgruntled Goblin King slowly loaded up on the screen.

"This is the guy you faced off as a kid, ain't it? Jared Williams, previously known as Jareth, King of the Goblins. Williams huh? Just like you Sar. Well, that ain't creepy at all. Nice face though. Sure he's got a nice ass too."

Sarah tried her best not to blush furiously. She did not need this right now. All she wanted was his address. Maybe a little more.

"What does the file say Bea?"

"Came to our world back in the eighties. Says he got kicked off the goblin throne because he was unfit to rule. Powers restricted, the usual hoo-ha. Admitted to one charge of stalking back in the eighties as well, but that was when he was fae royalty," Bea rolled her eyes and continued scrolling.

"Damn girl, what a catch. No real incidents after that. Doesn't say his job. Lives in Brick lane, Whitechapel, as he says he first remembers it."

Bea pursed her lips. "That's the place where Jack the Ripper did his line of work. You know, the unfound guy who used to rip women to shreds. Looking back, it probably was a fae."

Sarah felt her stomach flip a little. "Cool history fact Bea. Really wanted to know. Just great."

"Mm, ain't it just? You gonna be so cozy up in that creepy little flat."

Sarah leaned over Bea's shoulder. "But look! It's a ten minute walk to the office. That's good isn't it?"

Bea waved her off. "Sure, sure. I guess it'll be easier to run to a safe house that way," she said, printing out the records. The printing made a dull whining noise until it finished, producing about twenty pages of notes on the mysterious fae.

Sarah scooped up the sheets and began to walk through the grimy, poorly lit corridors after Bea. Headquarters had to be underground to keep secrecy from the public and all that.

"Do I have any assignments this week?" Sarah asked Bea who nodded to a young woman with silver hair.

"All I want you to do is keep an eye on this Jareth character. Get friendly with him. Flirt with him a little if you have to. Don't let him out of your sight though. He's got something sus about him, I know it."

Sarah shrugged as they walked into the entrance hall. "He used to steal babies for a living. What can you expect?"

Bea's eyes narrowed. "You just watch him yeah? And if anything happens," Bea dropped a pile of folders on the receptionist's desk. "I got a sofa you can sleep on."

The receptionist turned to Sarah, ticking something off on a clipboard. "What's got her knickers in a twist?"

Sarah glanced at the woman. She hadn't been here long, maybe a month or so. She was the one who'd been giving Sarah all the dull assignments. What was her name? Miranda or something.

"I'm moving in with a fae."

The receptionist nodded. "Well, you just be careful then. Never can tell what these lot are like."

Saturday slipped around much faster than Sarah would have preferred. After wrapping herself in numerous layers and contemplating if she could just not show up at all, she found herself making her way down a cobblestoned Brick Lane in the bitter cold, clutching at a packet of chocolate biscuits. It was overall quite a nice area, if not a tad the kind of place that hipsters flock to like birds. Briefly imagining a bearded man with wings and sleeve tattoo's, wearing flannel and a beanie, discussing with some disgust the mainstream qualities of flying south for the winter, Sarah tapped on the sturdy door of number 667a, where according to the file Jareth currently lived. An aged woman with severe black hair and heavily hooded eyes opened the door, leaning against the door frame. Not for the first time today, Sarah wondered what the hell she was doing here. The woman, who must have been the onsite landlady that Bea had mentioned to her, coughed impatiently. Sarah realised she'd been staring.

"Um," _excellent start,_ her brain muttered snidely. "I'm Sarah, Sarah Williams. Jared might have mentioned something about me coming over to look at the flat." Sarah extended a gloved hand, which the woman shook, a sly smile settled on her face.

"Yeah he mentioned you. You're a yank, aren't you? Sarah Williams, eh? Any relation to our little Jared then?"

Sarah's breath was forming little puff clouds and she couldn't feel her toes. "Oh, um, no."

The woman seemed to find this exceedingly interesting, processing it as she ushered a grateful Sarah to come in.

"Name's Janice Young. Call me Jan if you want. I'm the boss around here," she explained, leading Sarah down a dimly lit corridor and up some stairs. The words seemed to be coming out of her mouth so quickly that Sarah struggled to keep up with what she was saying.

"Live down in the basement with my partner, Keith. We did up this place a few years back. Still have to fix the heater. Chap's coming over in a few weeks to look at it. Probably gonna cost a fortune. Each level's got its own fully functioning apartment. One kitchen and dining, one bathroom, two bedrooms and a study. Second floor," Jan nodded to a door, with a strange blue light glowingly faintly from around the edges, as they continued up the stairs.

"Wouldn't bother them. Bit odd," she confided knowingly, before resuming with her rambling.

"Keith's a werewolf course, so we decided to open this place up for everyone. Had all sorts in these walls. Had to turn the sea monster down a few months ago obviously. Bathtub wasn't big enough."

Sarah's legs had begun to burn a little from all the climbing, so she was quite relieved when the landlady informed her they'd reached the right floor.

"Right, well let me know by the end of the week if you're planning on sticking around. Please remember no smoking in the building, _even_ if you're a fire mage, and the walls are kind of thin so nothing too loud, but if there is the occasional incident, don't worry about it. Keith and I can get pretty rowdy ourselves sometimes."

Sarah extremely hoped that she meant because he was a werewolf who howled at the moon once a month, or else it was bordering on the side of too much information and insinuating for Sarah's comfort.

Giving her thanks, Sarah watched the strange little woman make her way back down the stairs. Then she wondered what the hell she was doing here. Again. She was just about to go back the way she had come and apologise to Jan for all the trouble, when she heard the lock unlatch behind her. The door swung open, the Goblin King stood, maliciously wielding an entirely ferocious set of keys. Sarah held out her biscuits like a shield, completely ready for round two of verbal sparring. Instead Jareth simply nodded, gingerly plucking the biscuits out of her hands, making his way back inside.

"Thank-you Sarah," he said over his shoulder, "I was just about to head out and grab some of these. Please, come in won't you?"

Sarah stood in the doorway with some fair amount of shock. Where was the terrifying, baby snatching villain she'd faced down seven years ago? The clink of coffee mugs informed her he was, in fact, what she guessed was the kitchen.

"Sarah, please do close the door after you. Heater not working and all that."

Cautiously shuffling into the apartment and shutting the door behind her, she listened for the telltale resounding thud of doom and despair from the door. It was more a flimsy click of moderate safety from burglars. Jareth had continued his mindless chatter from the other room.

"I wouldn't mind Janice. I learnt rather the hard way she's quite the gossip. You'll never get a word in edgeways with that one."

Carefully making her way to the kitchen, looking all the while for suspended cages, buzz saws, torture racks and anything else he might have had lying around, Sarah was almost sadly disappointed to find that the most criminal thing she'd spotted so far was the wall paper. Sarah was still glaring at the offending wall paper when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle warningly. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she found Jareth standing only a fraction away, holding two mugs of tea and the plate with her biscuits. Sainsbury's best. Of course.

"Woah Nelly! Take a step or two back there Goblin King."

Smirkingly, Jareth obliged, offering her a cup. Sarah sniffed it suspiciously, wondering if it would be polite for her to ask if it were poisoned. Probably not. She prayed that if she went missing then at least Bea would know where she'd gone. After taking a few wary sips, Sarah found that it was just incredibly strong tea. Not poisoned. Hopefully. Looking up from the bitter concoction, Sarah noticed the Goblin King sprawled regally across the couch intently examining her. Self-consciously folding her arms across her chest, she raised her eyebrows in her best 'Can I help you face?' He just shrugged and took a swig of his tea.

"You're looking wonderful, for someone who should be at least in their late forties that is."

Sarah returned his shrug. "You seem pretty mellow, for someone who should be ruling over the Goblin populace of the Underground that is."

The Goblin King smiled grimly. "Ah, well precious."

Sarah frowned slightly. It was always disconcerting when older guys decided to give out nicknames like sweetheart, darling or precious. No matter how attractive they were it was a real red flag if ever there was one. She quit a job once because of something like that. Also because her nickname giving boss had been obese with poor hygiene and a terrible case of halitosis. It was more one of those reasons but the memory still came to mind.

"You of all people should know how it is these days. The Seelie Court believe you're going soft and kick you out of your rightful home, into the world above with no friends and little chance at redemption. After thirty years or so it can all get rather draining," he said bitterly, sipping his tea. Sarah would have almost felt sorry for him if she hadn't caught him glancing expectantly at her out of the corner of her eye.

The cynical part of Sarah's mind joined in with Jareth's grim smiling. Nothing like a mopey fae trying to guilt you into doing something.

"I suppose it must be very hard for you," she played along, giving him a sympathetic, wistful look. But only because Bea had asked her to. It wasn't like she was enjoying the attention or anything.

"I manage," he said, trying to cover his triumphant grin by taking another sip of his tea.

Sarah knew the deal now. She'd seen it done a couple of different times at work. And on an episode of Doctor Who once. The victim, herself, would be lured in by an outside party, Chris, and then would be introduced to the assailant, Jareth as it were. The assailant would then tell a sad sob story or say that they'd changed their ways OR both and then, as Bea would have said, BAM, bad shit happens.

Sarah had to agree with Bea on this one but would wait until she found out what Jareth wanted. That was what she was telling herself. It certainly wasn't the thrill of being involved with the Labyrinth again.

"Is there anything I could do to help you?" she asked, pushing her hair back, wondering if she'd be pushing it if she fluttered her eyelashes. "You said little chance of redemption, there must be something we could do?"

Jareth traced the rim of his cup as if deep in thought.

"There could be... One way," he said dramatically, staring into the distance.

It was getting increasingly hard to keep her damsel in distress face in place. Thank goodness she hadn't had the time to become a film actress. The Goblin King continued to preen. " _Get on with it Shatner_ ," she thought scathingly.

"Oh?" She queried "What is it?"

Jareth loped easily off the couch, seemingly prowling. Sarah tried her best to continue looking innocent and awestruck, but she stuck her keys wolverine style between her fingers nonetheless. That way, if he got a bit too close, it would hurt him more when she punched him into oblivion.

"You're a crucial part of the plan, my dear."

Sarah gnawed a lip "Ok."

"Eventually we would have to return to the Labyrinth."

Sarah nodded as if she were actually considering a lifetime of enslavement to a tight wearing narcissist, in a magical world with potentially no running water. Which is no doubt what would happen if she agreed to go with him.

"Hmm... I don't think that would work."

Jareth was starting to get a little too close for comfort, so Sarah rattled her keys warningly.

"Why would that be precious? I'm sure it would be enjoyable," he breathed.

Sarah hadn't even moved in yet and already she could have filed for sexual harassment. He was definitely too close now and the 'precious' thing was starting to irk on her nerves.

"Enjoyable?" she snorted, "Don't count your fairies before they bite. If you call me precious one more time, I'll break your face Goblin King."

The Goblin King chuckled once before backing off entirely. It was exceedingly unfair that he got to go from being a ten on the intensity scale to a zero in less than a second. She was still flustered from that time he had decided to introduce himself by bursting through her parents' bedroom window.

He was back on the couch, sipping his tea and munching on a biscuit, and she was a hormonal mess. Swilling the last dregs of his tea, Jareth picked up the two mugs, hers still considerably full, and made his way back to the kitchen sink.

"As you wish _Sarah_."

Sarah relaxed her grip on her keys, which had been biting painfully into her hand. Loping his way back over to her, the Goblin King gave her a lob sided grin before gesturing widely with his hand. "Let me show you around my flat."

Deep down, Sarah sighed. Didn't that sound delightfully underwhelming? So much for mystery and adventure.

About half an hour later and the tour of the apartment had been going pretty well. So far she had seen the study and the kitchen, which were fairly normal, apart from the amount of glitter floating around and strangely enough a giant poster of Ziggy Stardust hanging up in the broom closet. Sarah's heart had leapt a little at that, being a Bowie fanatic and all. At least she'd be able to play her records here without her semi-stoned room-mate complaining. Everything was in working order and Jareth hadn't made any more creepy comments, or tried whisking her away to the Underground, the magical variety, not the tube, which he had mentioned more than once to inform her there was one a five minute walk from here, in the past 30 minutes. It was all probably going too well really, but that changed when they reached the bathroom.

When Sarah first went to England, everyone warned her about how much it was going to rain. The first ten days she spent in England it actually didn't rain at all. Sarah would have considered this normal since it was the middle of summer, but then she read the local newspaper. Apparently they were suffering from the drought of a century and the advertising column was even offering 15% off fake grass. " _Everyone warns you about how much it will rain_ ," Sarah thought glumly, _"but no-one ever bothers to tell you about the carpet."_

 _"_ _Carpet? Haha! What a great idea! Let's just stick the bloody stuff EVERYWHERE!"_ Sarah was quite certain that's what British people were thinking in the sixties, as she looked at the bathroom. There was really nothing that could compare to the feeling of moist carpet squished beneath cold toes. In the worst possible way that is. To be fair, the carpet was the bathrooms only real fault. It was clean. The combined bath-shower looked a tad old and the floral shower curtain draped over it would have to go once she moved in, but that was about it. It was surprising really. There wasn't a lot in the bathroom, apart from some deodorant, a razor and a couple of hair ties sitting by the wash basin. All normal bathroom things. Not that she was disappointed or anything, but Sarah had been expecting... well... more make-up than what was available on a Madi Gras Day. No matter what he said, the Goblin King wasn't living up to her expectations this time around. Fortunately.

She was just about to leave when she heard a low rumbling noise coming from the bathtub.

"What was that?"

Jareth leant against the door, nonchalantly examining his nails. "Hm?"

Something was up, Sarah just knew it. He may have looked innocent but Sarah knew you couldn't examine your nails with a pair of leather gloves on.

"That noise," she asked suspiciously, "Didn't you hear it?"

The Goblin King rolled his eyes. "No doubt your _vivid_ imagination filling in a blank space. Do you want to check? Maybe there's something else of mine for you to _smash up_ in here too."

Sarah pulled a face, _'Drama King',_ but went to slip passed him anyway. It was probably just the drain system or that sea monster Jan had mentioned earlier. Maybe it had come back to wreak havoc on the building for being turned away. It had probably teamed up with the sprite that had fallen down the toilet.

"Do you always have to be so up yourself?"

The Goblin King opened his mouth to object when the noise came again. It sounded a bit like a belch and was definitely coming from the bathtub this time.

Slowly making her way back to the bath despite Jareth's many (borderline perverse) protests that they should move on to the bedrooms, Sarah gripped the plastic-y material. " _What was he hiding? Was it a secret portal to the Underground? An illegal stash of fairy eggs? The dead body from Psycho?"_ Yanking back the floral monstrosity of a shower curtain, Sarah found herself staring into the piggy eyes of a goblin, who was happily munching away on a bar of soap. She knew this one, Teesk, as he was a frequent visitor to her apartment. It was because of Teesk, Sarah started buying shower gel. Clearly to get his soap hit, he'd started coming here instead.

"Hello girl who ate the peach." He had a squeaky voice. Sarah suspected it was from all the soap. That would explain the constant stream of bubbles too.

"Hello Teesk. How are you?"

He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, his wrinkly face screwed up.

"S'ok. Sad. Your soap nicer than the not Majesty's. Flowery taste. Nicety to the palettes. Reals top notch treat, it was. You's gonna get it back?"

Sarah heard another noise, a thud this time, that sounded suspiciously like a head hitting a door frame, followed by a groan and a "Bloody hell."

"No, I'm sorry Teesk, I quite like my shower gel."

Teesk and Sarah ignored the Goblin King and continued with their conversation. This was quite difficult as Teesk had been a goblin for so long and was such a little kid when he was turned, that his vocabulary had worn itself down to just above the bare minimum. She was so involved with listening to Teesk about the seventy-third Chicken marathon, she hardly noticed when Jareth glided to her side, looking rather pinched in the face.

"An' that's when we crowned foul Hen-ry the Fowl as the new supreme ruler of all the chickenz," summarised Teesk.

Sarah was just about to congratulate the little goblin when she noticed Jareth, who had a small vein popping out if his neck. Stooping down to eye level, the Goblin King plastered a rather tight, Sarah noticed, smile on his face. Not dissimilar to the way one would smile at a small child who just drew all over the living room wall. With their own poo.

"Teesk, although that was a truly _fascinating_ story," he said in a sickly sweet voice, which quickly hardened, "and by fascinating I mean I don't give a rat's left clacker if the chicken won, lost or ended up on my dinner plate. I must ask you, what was the rule we set for today, _hm?"_ the sweet voice returned.

 _"_ _There we go!"_ thought Sarah happily, " _there's the baby snatching Goblin King I know and love!_ "

 _You_ ** _love_** _him?_ A little voice asked playfully.

" _Ew, no. It's an expression. Shut up,"_ she grumbled to her clearly hormonal self.

Teesk was munching thoughtfully again, picking some soap from in-between his pointed teeth with a long, dirty fingernail.

"Rules? Erm, well there's no chickenz in the bathtub."

Jareth nodded " _Mmm_?"

"An', um, an no sleepin' in yer bed. Even if there be a storm."

"Yes, **and**?"

Teesk was growing flustered. His little knobbly hands twisting themselves in knots and his expression clearly asked 'How many rules was he expecting me to know?'

Sarah felt laughter ripple in her throat and the goblin grumpily stared at her.

Then stared at her some more. Sarah saw realisation dawn on Teesk's face. "Don- Don't come over today because the Sarah, Champion an' lady of the Labyrinth, she ow smashes all, girl who ate the peach an' forgot everything but tharn remembers, is ta look round the flat."

Teesk's eyes bulged out of his head at slightly odd angles. "That was ta rule, weren't it, not Majesty?"

Jareth grinned feral. "Precisely Teesk! And what happens to those who break the rules?"

Teesk went a nasty shade of grey and whimpered but didn't answer.

Jareth tilted his head. "Go, find the others. Tell them to return to the Underground. So long as I catch none of you, I will not punish you. Not _this_ time."

Teesk looked like he was about to cry with relief. _"What the hell was the punishment? What was so_ ** _bad_** _that it could make a near indestructible goblin weep?_ Sarah wondered.

Teesk had long since scampered away by the time Sarah and Jareth left the bathroom. Among her list of things to get when she started living here were:

\- Bleach (for the lingering smell of mildew and goblins in the bathroom sink)

\- A new shower curtain, obviously, maybe that cool one of King Kong she'd seen on the internet.

\- Something to organise all her shampoo so it was far out of goblin reach.

 _"_ _Maybe she should go to Ikea. Had Jareth been to Ikea?"_ This was a pressing issue that Sarah would no doubt be able to entertain herself with on her more sleepless nights. She could practically imagine him showing up in full Goblin King armour and demanding the highest quality Poäng. Then making up a cheerful ditty about the Swedish meatballs. Sarah would pay good money to see that.

After briefly being shown her bedroom, the pair wandered back into the lounge room.

" _Okay Sarah,"_ she muttered to herself, _"time for a quick escape. Tell him you had a nice time, you'll consider the deal, and get the hell out of here before he decides it's Labyrinth time again."_

Sarah opened her mouth to say her goodbyes, but the words got jumbled up in her throat when she saw him slumped on the couch. Instead of saying, 'See you round.' It came out as more of a concerned, "Are you alright?"

Jareth's face was a mixture of bewildered sadness. "It's been thirty years. And for them it's been nothing, _nothing_ , tra **laLA!** _Nothing!"_

He smiled ruefully. "I was told, when I came to this world, that I had to move on. That I could no longer be their leader." Jareth let out a bark like laugh, raking his fingers through his hair. They were still gloved, Sarah noted. " _Move_ on? Bah! How _can_ I? _They_ haven't moved on. I'm _still_ their leader."

Sarah crouched in front of him and gently patted his hand. "It's okay Jareth, really. You were their king for what? A hundred years? A thousand? Goblin's are like really freaky cats. You can't just change things suddenly or they'll pee on everything. There's a lot they and you need to get used to. We can work on the goblin problem. Together if you want!"

The Goblin Kings eyes held a rare gleam she'd never seen before.  
" **Really**?" His voice was incredulous, "You'd do that? For _me?_ "

Sarah gave him a grin and another reassuring pat. "Of course! It's all a part of my job isn't it? I'll get the boss to write up some files for you."

She was so deep in thought about all the procedures she'd have to go through, Sarah hardly noticed the gleam suddenly dull.

"Of course," he said sullenly, sinking back into the couch "All _part of the job._ You'd do the same for anyone."

Sarah nodded, standing up and dusting glitter off her jeans. "Yep! I try to help anyone I can."

"Hm," he sniffed, "Well you'd best be going now. No doubt you have simply _hundreds_ of needy people just _begging_ for **your** help."

 _"_ _What got his tights in a twist?"_ Sarah wondered after she'd let herself out, wandering back down the stairs. Probably just upset about Teesk, she decided, not wanting to dwell on the moods swings of a prima donna king for too long anyway.

She found herself making her way back up a cobblestoned Brick Lane in the bitter cold, with Jan's suggestion that they could turn the second bedroom into a guest, still burning in her ears.

* * *

 _A/N: So here is is all new and improved and shiny. Like a new car!_

 _What up? As a side note, I understand that Sarah may not be Westerner but when you're an American in another Western country it doesn't matter where you a from, you're a Yank. At least in our eyes you are._

 _Shatner for those who don't know, is the best over re/actor of all time._

winchesterbitch: (I love your name).

kapkeyknudols : That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to moi.

Honoria Granger: I will write sooo many chapters. You'll hate me.

Lylabeth 1: I'm happy that you got past the first four pages but I can promise you that the next will be just full of typo's, grammar mistakes, poorly written characters and soppy romance cliches.

Honoria Granger: Thanks (yank)

Guest: No being impolite, it's against the British constitution. In future, no coke cookies for you.

winchesterbitch: Aw! Well I love you too! (Didn't that confession happen faster than Jareth confessing his love for Sarah in a Laby fic?)

GigiMusic: Well cheers m'dear. I try

Lylabeth 1: You go Lylabeth! Good Karma points to you!

Ebony-Dove: *Gasps* Y-you found me here too? Okay, just don't tell the others about this fic. It's stays between you and me.


	3. Toddlers and Tiaras

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _I_ _t belong's to Jim Henson._

 _Sacagawea._

* * *

Bea drummed her fingers against her desk. "That all you know?"

If Sarah hadn't known her any better, she may have been more than a little intimidated. Bea just had that powerful aura about her. A 'Don't fuck with me' stance as Bea, herself, had proudly called it. Sarah had always speculated that it had something to do with the way she dressed and held herself. Today she was wearing a blue pantsuit that could have been straight out of the eighties, and under normal circumstances would have been laughed at but now... Sarah tilted her head, trying to work it out, now she looked, what was the word? Formidable. That was it. How was it that she could wear the shortest skirt in the world and still look like an Amish librarian and all Bea had to do was throw on some red lipstick and something other than jeanie pants and she looked up for world domination? It just wasn't fair.

A set of manicured fingers impatiently snapped in front of her face.

"Sarah. Sarah girl. Snap out of it. Has that white-assed bastard put you in some voodoo power trance or are you just going all dreamy on me again?"

Sarah shook her head, "Yeah, sorry Bea. What was it you wanted?"

Bea linked her fingers together, "Goblin King. What are his motives? You mentioned something earlier about him wanting to take you to the Underground. You've been there almost a week now! What's going on down there? Has he made any more attempts at you? Who are his connections? What makes this guy tick?"

Sarah leaned back with a sigh and the chair gave a disheartened creak. "Honestly Bea, in his words 'All is fine and dandy.' I still have no idea where Jareth works, but it's more than enough to pay the bills. He hasn't mentioned the Underground since that first time, although he still has a steady stream of goblin visitors and the occasional chicken popping in. And before you ask, the goblins are barely able to hold a chicken coop let alone a military one. There is more of a threat from the three stooges than those guys. I really don't know much else."

Bea raised an eyebrow questioningly. Sarah shrugged. She could have mentioned the other goings on in the apartment building. There was a ghost of a petite Asian woman that Sarah had seen around, who oddly enough haunted the coat rack by the apartments' main entrance. Although Jan had never seen her in person, she knew of her. Sarah had yet to see the inhabitants of floor two, but had occasionally caught a pair of large brown eyes staring at her from the crack in the door as she wandered past. Jan and Kieth who Sarah was also yet to meet, were as loud as promised but she very much doubted Bea would want to know that.

"What else do you want to know? He gets upset when I put sugar in my tea and one time when he bought home fish and chips, he threw my portion out the window because I called mushy peas, baby puree. He won't drink instant coffee and he prefers multigrain over white bread. Sometimes I can hear him playing guitar but he won't let me into his bedroom so I suppose it could be some band recording. Last night I couldn't even sleep, the jerk was playing this song so loud..." Sarah trailed off.

It had been the song from the Labyrinth. From _that_ time he'd made her dress up like Princess Diana. It annoyed her that her heart dropped a little every time she heard it. Maybe that was his goal. To give her a heart attack or let her collapse from sleep exhaustion. In a way, Sarah didn't mind the lack of sleep. Technically it wasn't doing her any good... but, those dreams. God she hated them more than anything. Even more than soap stealing goblins. Sarah had decided she wouldn't mention the dreams that had been coming back. Bea would only jump down her throat about it or suspect it was Jareth's fault, which it could very well be for all she knew. Bea didn't need that kind of information now. They both just had too much on their plates. Maybe, Sarah thought intently, she'd let Bea know after she'd unpacked the last of the boxes. Unconsciously her hand began to drift to her lower back.

Bea gave her an expression laced with concern, "You aren't hurting again are you?"

Sarah jolted back to reality. A reality where she shared a flat with her previous arch nemesis but still.

"He ain't hurting you? If he is, I'll whoop him into tiny assed, little goblin pieces."

"Oh no! I'm fine. Really! No one's hurting me. It's not like the incident. Not at all Bea! I swear," Sarah said hurriedly, holding her hand over her heart in what she hoped looked like an oath. "I'd let you know something like that. Just deep in thought, y'know?"

Bea leaned back in her seat, "All right honey, but you let me know if the pain comes back. AND, I wanna know in advance, yeah? None of this hero bullshit. If you show up at the office at death's door and you haven't told me, then I won't care. You can go and die, and it'll be your fault too."

Sarah rolled her eyes. If Bea really didn't care, then she wouldn't be getting this talk. In fact, Bea wouldn't even be talking to her at all. She'd most likely had left Sarah in that coffee shop all those months ago, with a pamphlet on stress induced amnesia and no serious recollection of the previous two hours.

"Okay Bea. If I get so much as a hangnail, you'll be the first to know."

Bea nodded, "Damn straight I will. Anyway, if you're up to it, can you still do the fairy dust case with Hudson?"

"Drug-dealing troll under the bridge case, yeah?"

Bea nodded again, "Yeah, that's the one. I'll get that Mindy woman to send you the details."

Sarah crinkled her nose, _"Mindy? Who the hell was Mindy?"_

FALAFEL/FALAFEL/FALAFEL/FALAFEL/FALAFEL/FALAFEL/FALAFEL

Sarah jammed her keys into the front door and wished she had a spare hand to stuff her fingers in her ears. It was pretty clear that somewhere in the apartment someone, or something, had stuck a cat's tail in a blender or something equally as horrible from the noise being made. The noise was unsuccessfully being covered up by someone strumming a few bleak chords from what sounded like David Bowie's ' _Starman_.' Shoving the door open, Sarah kicked off her heels, immediately making her way to the lounge through loose sheaves of paper and various other knick-knacks. In centre the of all the chaos, Jareth stood between the couches, guitar clasped between his fingers.

"Let the children use it. Let the children lose it. Let the children bloody STOP their wailing."

"That was an interesting rendition Jareth," Sarah called over the noise.

Jareth viciously twanged another chord, "Lovely to see you too Sarah."

 _"What was he doing?"_ Sarah picked her way over to him. He knew that there was a level of tidiness that had to be kept in the flat. There was a fine line between artistically cluttered and pig-sty, which he had grossly overstepped. She was about a metre away when she noticed the screaming baby nestled in-between the cushions on the couch.

 _"Baby? Baby. Baby Baby. Baby."_

"Jareth?" her voice was meant to come out as a low warning but rather resembled a squeak. "Have you..? I mean, you wouldn't ha- Is that a real? But you know better than to... You haven't kidnapped a buh-baby?"

Jareth rolled his eyes to the ceiling, "Good grief Sarah. You think I suffer a bit of nostalgia and snatch the first blubbering baby carriage that passes in the street?" he sniffed indignantly. "Really Sarah, I'm offended you would even think that."

Sarah put her hands on her hips in what she hoped was an intimidating pose. "Yeah, yeah. You've told me many times before what a terrible person I am. I starve and exhaust you, my eyes can be cruel, yada-yada. I'm sure I'll move on. That still doesn't explain THE CRYING BABY IN MY LIVING ROOM JARETH **!"**

With a dainty flick of his wrist he swung the guitar over one shoulder, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "It is a favour for the current King of the Goblins! There's a runner in the Labyrinth who has a rather long history with him. He needed a place to keep the babe for thirteen hours and so he came to me. Is that okay? Does that meet your approval?"

The baby was still screaming.

"I suppose," Sarah said as she scooped up the wriggling baby, bouncing it on her hip. The baby snapped its mouth shut almost immediately and gazed up at her, in that cute ogling way babies do. She knew there had been benefits to being the neighbourhood baby-sitter other than a measly five bucks an hour.

"But why was it crying?"

Jareth winced, "Goblins," he muttered, "They poked him with a stick when he first arrived an hour ago. Although the baby was not hurt, I hadn't been able to get him to shut-up since."

The baby was not as bad as Jareth was implying, Sarah felt, somewhat defensively. All she had to do was bounce him up and down. Jareth must have been pretty out of practise. With more than some concern, Sarah noticed the dark bags lurking under his eyes. It really wouldn't do to have him falling asleep on her when they had a baby to look after. Still bouncing the baby on her hip, she shooed the grateful Jareth off to the bathroom to freshen up. They still had another twelve hours with this kid and they were going to do it together, but not if he smelt. Jareth had just enough time to shoot her a radiant grin before Sarah slammed the door in his face. He'd explained himself sure, it was a good enough reason she guessed and he wasn't the baby snatcher she'd feared, but she was still pissed with him. Later he was going to know how pissed. She just wasn't going to do this in front of the baby. So she busied herself trying to find makeshift things for the baby. Dishtowels for diapers and keys as a baby rattle. That distracted her for maybe fifteen minutes. A little over an hour later, and Jareth still had not come out of the bathroom and to make it worse, the baby was crying. Babies, as anyone who had been babysitting as long as Sarah could tell you, have a number of different cries. She recalled some of the cries as she hunted through the fridge. Some cries tell you, 'I'm sleepy,' others might say something along the lines of, 'I've just shit myself and would like it if someone removed said shit.' There is one cry which Sarah knew very well from her days of babysitting Toby, which Baby (she had decided that was Baby's name) was demonstrating perfectly now. It was the cry of hunger. A cry for blood, one could say. It said, and this was Sarah translating pure baby, 'If thou doth not place the food in my face hole in an orderly fashion, then thou shalt know the true wrath of God. Better known as... _ME_.' Sarah sniffed the leftover mushy peas suspiciously. " _Babies could eat peas... couldn't they?"_ "How old is an acceptable age to start giving a baby mushy peas?" Sarah asked out loud. Baby gave a dangerously angry whimper. She gave them another sniff before turning up her nose. Although peas were usually green, she was guessing they weren't usually so... furry. Maybe it was a British thing. Jareth would know, hopefully. If he hadn't fallen asleep on the loo. Sarah inspected the yoghurt closely, " _What was the fae doing in that shower anyway?_ " _And they said women took a long time in the bathroom. Obviously they were wrong. At least in Jareth's case. They were probably wrong a LOT of the time in Jareth's case."_

He decided to make an appearance just as she was disposing of the peas. " _THE NERVE_!" she internally raged. He didn't even have a shirt on! It was a miracle he wasn't frozen solid. " _The bloody heater was still broken and he hadn't put a shirt on. What had he been doing all this time in the bathroom if it wasn't getting dressed?"_ Under close scrutiny, perhaps lingering a little too long on the trim waist, " _Hell yeah male objectification!"_ the perverted part of her mind whooped. " _Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up,_ "' she hissed back, slightly concerned that perhaps Jareth _could_ read minds. She figured his hair was noticeably more... well noticeably more... how could she put this? Sarah decided his hair, looked like he'd just stuck a fork in a plug socket. Similar to what it had been like back at the Labyrinth. Sarah shuddered, maybe she was just used to him having it pulled back in a ponytail, but it was giving her the creeps. After shooting a quick glance at the mirror and a curt nod, Jareth gave his damp hair another slight ruffle. Sarah rolled her eyes, he was such a vain peacock. " _Oh, wait no!_ " she shook her head with a sigh, " _That was an insult to peacocks_."

"Jareth?" Sarah called, turning back to the fridge. "Do we have any baby formula?"

"Not unless you're not telling me something," he said smartly.

"Arse-hole," she grumbled to the tinned apricots.

"Why Sarah!" she stiffened as a voice crooned in her ear. "I didn't _realise_ you'd been trying to look _there!_ "

Shrinking into her oversized hoodie, Sarah ducked underneath Jareth's arms, which were suddenly barred against the fridge. She silently cursed her Irish ancestors as a blush crept up her neck. And then cursed Jareth for being such a git and not wearing a shirt. And then herself for even mentioning... " _UGH! Only he would pick up on a term like that and silently make it across a room in less than two-seconds."_

"I don't know _what_ you're on about Goblin King!" she said, trying to avoid sounding flustered. "It's obvious I'm looking for baby food."

The smug bastard smirked. She was definitely going to have to tell the goblins where he hoarded his soap to get him back.

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really," Sarah said nonchalantly, tilting her chin.

Jareth leaned to one side, folding his arms across his chest. _"PUT A SHIRT ON!"_ her mind screamed.

" _Don't listen to her!_ " the disgusting little voice whispered gleefully.

"I think we both know _very_ well that we were not talking about the baby."

She licked her suddenly dry lips, inching nervously along the kitchen counter towards the lounge.

"We weren't? What were we talking about?"

He raised his eyebrows suggestively, taking slow, deliberate steps forward. "Well..."

Baby started his screaming with a new vengeance. Sarah sagged with relief, rushing off to grab the bawling baby, dodging a wayward chicken on the way.

"Jareth! Baby food! Get some. NOW!"

"I can't leave _you_ with the _baby_! It's against the rules."

Sarah shot him a venomous look. "Wasn't it against the rules to shorten a runner's time limit? Just get the ruddy baby food and please do it _quickly_."

Jareth's lips set in a thin line. "Sarah, my _dear_ ," he said forcefully. "Why don't _you_ get the baby food and I'll stay with the baby?"

Sarah's arms tightened around the baby protectively. Her heart leapt in her throat. It was all flooding back. The last time she and the Goblin King had faced-off over a baby. Except he'd been wearing all white and Toby hadn't looked as much like that Churchill guy.

"I'm not leaving him with you. I... I'm not going to ruin another life. You can't be trusted. Not after Toby. Not after any of that bullsh-" Sarah glanced apprehensively at the squalling baby. "I mean, bull rubbish," she said lowering her suddenly shrill voice. "I don't even know if the Goblin King _actually_ gave you this baby!"

Thankfully Jareth didn't seem to notice her voice cracking at the end or didn't seem to care. His eyes blazed angrily, a cold smile hovering over his lips.

"And what am I supposed to do to that baby that is _so_ terrible Sarah? Play _peek-a-boo_? Tickle it's _tiny, a-dor-a-bel, tosie-wosies_? Trust me, I wouldn't be minding this child if I wasn't getting something out of it. The Goblin King is giving me something in return," he sneered. "As for Toby, I never harmed him. He was most likely at his happiest at my castle. I certainly was, but you ruined that for both of us."

"You were going to turn him into a goblin!" she cried, instinctively shielding Baby away from him.

Jareth tossed his head back with a snort. "Sarah, would you _think_ for one moment instead of rushing head first into something as _usual_. Your special little _'government agency'_ has known about my home for years. Do you honestly believe that they still allowed me to turn the children into goblins? It would be like a teacher whipping a student with a cane."

Sarah reluctantly loosened her grip on the baby a little. " _That made sense_." She supposed they wouldn't. " _After all, the paperwork involved would be monstrous._

"If you don't turn them into goblins, then what do you do? Adopt them out to fae families or something? What's the point of the Labyrinth then?"

Jareth shrugged smoothly. Sarah felt her cheeks burn as her eyes slid unconsciously over his chest.

Jareth snorted, "Please Sarah, you should know by now that fae breed like honeymooning rabbits. We just spread that rumour around to justify coming above to... _collect_ mortals."

If Sarah had her arms free she would have folded them. Instead she raised a sceptical eyebrow, "You mean steal, don't you?"

Jareth shrugged again and Sarah wished she had a way to shield her eyes.

"Yeah, I do."

"And the babies? Do you _collect_ them to?"

"We return them. Usually," he said simply. "Unless they're being abused, there's no real point in keeping them. The Labyrinth is really just like a massive smack to the wrist. You get off with a light punishment, having learnt the life-long lessons of not taking things for granted and that not all things will be fair. We would get benefits for being charitable to society. It was what you humans call a win-win situation."

Sarah eyed him a little angrily, "What about all the rubbish you gave me at the start. …thirteen hours until your baby brother becomes one of us forever?'"

"What can I say?" Jareth said with a winning smile, "Old habits die hard. If anything your brother might have come home with talons or a set of horns or something. We stopped the goblin thing a while ago."

Sarah shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Really?" she asked timidly, "When did they stop turning children into goblins?"

Jareth tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment. "I'd say in my time, the last child I recall turning was that good for nothing soap stealer of yours, Teesk, but I may have done a couple after that. It was a busy time."

Sarah rocked Baby back and forth soothingly, still unsure, "Why was it so busy?"

The ex-Goblin King frowned slightly, "It was a matter of timing I suppose."

" _When_?"

He turned to face the window and Sarah was unsure if the view had gotten better or worse. "Why would _you_ care?"

Sarah's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "I dunno. Why would you get so defensive about it?"

"It was the humans' fault," he snapped over his shoulder. "Had your kind not been so greedy and selfish, I wouldn't have had to do what was needed."

Sarah had to resist the urge not to stomp her foot. "I was not _trying_ to be selfish. I didn't ask to have a brand new baby brother."

"No, but you were certainly quick enough to wish him away, weren't you?"

"Why are you acting like such a dick?" Sarah asked exasperatedly, putting a hand cautiously on one of his shoulders. "Please Jareth... tell me what's wrong? When did it all go wrong?"

His eyes glazed over, "There were _so_ many," he said hopelessly, "I could hardly keep up. Nearly _ten_ summons a day. Sometimes _more_. It wasn't even that bad in the 'Potato Famine,' or the 'Fire of London,' or the 'Black Death'."

His jaw clenched, "They said people were jumping out of buildings, just to get away from their debt."

"The Great Depression," Sarah breathed. For some strange reason, she felt dreadfully sorry for the man in front of her. He looked so lost. "Jareth, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"They didn't even want to give the children up, but there was no money. They were starving."

Baby let out a particularly horrible howl, snapping them both to attention.

"Well..." Sarah laughed awkwardly, "no doubt Baby here is starving too! How about we go out _together_ and get the formula?"

"Of course," Jareth said, nodding vigorously. "Together."

"And Jareth?" she asked softly, looking him in the eye. He appeared quite startled. "We can talk about this later if you want. All of it. The depression, the goblins. I can even look into getting those files for you sometime next week if you want?"

Jareth tilted his head, seemingly puzzled. "...Thank-you Sarah," he rolled the phrase around in his mouth. Apparently being grateful was a new thing for him. Sarah punched him playfully on the arm.

"Anytime buddy," she purposely put on an overly cheesy voice.

"I suppose we should be off then," he murmured, most likely still a little dazed from the 'Great Depression' thing, heading towards the door.

"Umm... Jareth?"

He looked at her almost expectantly. "Yes... Sarah?"

"You're not going out like that are you? Put a shirt on."

He looked down in mild surprise. "Right. Yes. Most definitely."

"Honestly man," she grumbled sarcastically, "you're giving the baby the wrong idea."

She gave Baby a comforting squeeze, "Come on little one. Don't be upset. At least you don't see me wandering around without a shirt on." If Sarah had been less absorbed with the baby, she would have noticed Jareth's expression turned from mild surprise to that of complete blissful stupidity, or maybe heard him let out a small sigh. "No, you don't."


	4. Soho was only so-so

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belong's to Jim Henson._

 _5 syllables!_

* * *

They were doing the supermarket shop in Soho. The reason she was dawdling down the neon-lit maze of twisting laneways; packed full of chic little restaurants selling quinoa and other health foods that tasted like cardboard, bars (both gay and straight) and clothing stores where all the clothes had been preowned at least twice, was because Sarah swore black and blue that she was _not_ going within a one-mile radius of her usual place with Jareth and a baby. There would be _far_ too many assumptions. There probably were assumptions being made as it was, but at least she didn't know any of these people. She was probably exposing the baby to numerous amounts of bad influences, but after weighing it up against the fact that the current Goblin King may have had the same taste in fashion as the previous, she figured she wasn't doing any real damage. Before setting off they had wrapped a few of Sarah's scarves around the baby and found a red tea cosy with pink spots to service as a beanie. It had a pompom dangling precariously on the top which made her giggle whenever the baby bobbed up and down. It was probably because of this that she had to keep a hold of Jareth's hand, as within the first five minutes she had managed to get lost twice and the puff ball haired Goblin King had grabbed her hand and begun dragging her through the crowds, weaving in and out of the people like a fish in water. Sarah peered around inquisitively. There were all sorts around here. Most of the shops had set out twinkling fairy lights all ready for Christmas, others had stuck up little plastic trees. Over by a baby-blue cake shop, which was wafting the most delicious smells and mingling with the underlying odour of beer, a woman swerved her way through the masses of people on a hot pink tricycle. A man in sleek, bright red hooker boots toddled past, before staggering into the nearest bar. Banners of all colours, advertising butchers and bakers and organic beeswax candle makers, fluttered dully in the wind. Near the candy cane striped barbers shop a man slinked by, his navy blue tail curling lazily behind him. _"Wait a second!"_ she thought with some confusion " _A_ _tail!"_

She whipped her head around just quickly enough to see its barbed tip disappearing into the crowd. "Jareth!" she hissed in his ear, "there was a man with a _tail_! Just over there." She pointed off in the direction of the barber shop.

He glanced in the direction, lips curling in a slow smile. "And _?_ "

She clung to his arm looking baffled. "And? What do you mean 'And?' There are Under-grounders wandering around out in the open, without glamours on, where anyone could see them! He could give the whole thing away!"

"Sarah dear," she bristled slightly from the pet name but decided not to make a scene in public. "This is _Soho_. It is the heart of London's art, music and fashion scene... and _other enjoyments,_ " his smirk widened as they passed a shop displaying a woman lounging in thin strips of leather. She had probably just ruined the baby's innocence forever.

"That doesn't matter Jareth!" she said as she frantically tried to shield Baby's eyes. "He's going to give it all away! Everything we've worked for. I have to tell Bea _right now!_ Someone's going to notice."

Jareth snickered quietly. It was not funny at all! Bea got _really_ cranky when someone phoned her after hours and she didn't want to make it worse by saying some stupid Under-grounder had decided to go walking around without his glamour firmly in place.

"It's not funny Jareth!" she said menacingly as the baby tried to squirm its way out of her arms.

"It's incredibly funny."

"Is not!" she retorted sharply.

A smug expression played around his lips. "Darling, as I said before, you're standing in the centre of influential art. How should I put this for you?" he mused. " _Immigrants_ from my part of the world are drawn here like a moth to a flame. Over half the people you see here are well aware of the _downstairs department_ and the other half..." he trailed off as a couple strolled by linked arm in arm. One with long white-blonde hair curled around their waist, and the other fluttered false eyelashes _at least_ an inch long. "... well let's just say that those two _certainly_ aren't from my neck of the woods. Now stop getting so hot under the collar pet. You're upsetting the baby."

Sarah ground her teeth, bobbing the baby up and down, causing the pompom to jiggle. " _You're upsetting the baby Sarah!"_ she grumbled to herself as Jareth scanned the buildings. "Pshh, I'm not the one wandering around topless, introducing the innocent minded to gay bars and cabaret. But now that I think about the gay bars, do explain the suffocating amount of glitter you just happen to have lying around?"

"There it is!" he yanked her arm so hard she was certain it nearly came out of its socket. " _Obviously didn't like the gay comment_ " she thought shrewdly.

He pulled her towards a narrow set of worn steps leading downwards. A single light bulb flickered ominously to light the way. As she got further down the steps she noticed the tang of spices drifting in the air.

 _"_ _Danger!_ " her mind screamed. " _It'll be ok,_ " she reassured herself, " _we've been with Jareth a week and he hasn't tried anything yet. Besides, if he does try anything, we can kick his scrawny, fae butt."_ Warily she made her way down the last three steps and peered into the room. She couldn't see for a moment as her eyes were assaulted with the commercial white light. Blinking away the black dots dancing around her vision, eventually she made out rows and rows of stacked shelves selling the strangest of foods. _"Sea Urchin_ powder? Hello Kitty _Candy_?" Sarah balanced the baby in one arm and picked up a packet to examine it. Sarah wrinkled her nose in disgust as she looked at the packet showing some young YouTube vlogger who was merrily holding up a bowl of, according to the packet, what appeared to be fish sperm. _"Scrummy,"_ she thought, curling her lip.

"Ahem."

Startled, Sarah put down the packet hurriedly and turned to face a short, stout woman in her mid to late fifties.

"Hallo! I'm Lei Lin," she said pointing to her name tag, pinned proudly to her chest. "Can I help you today?" her face wrinkled with a happy smile to reveal a row of sharp, pointed teeth.

Sarah took an unconscious step back. "Oh... um, me and my..."she trailed off, a puzzled expression on her face. " _What did she call Jareth? Partner? Like in crime obviously but..."_ she shrugged, "What I meant to say was, Jareth and I are just grabbing some food for junior here," she jiggled the baby to illustrate her point. Baby gurgled grumpily. The woman's ears seemed to prick up at Jareth's name.

"Jareth?" she asked slowly, "That is an... _unusual_ name."

Sarah could have kicked herself, " _Stupid, stupid, stupid_." "It's, um..." she looked around frantically. "Well, I'd rather you not tell anyone but..." an idea suddenly struck her like a lightning bolt, "It's my... um... _pet_ name for him," she said, trying to look embarrassed and easily succeeding.

The woman's eyes widened with realisation. "Oh, I _see_! Don't worry. I won't tell," she said with a sly wink.

Just then Jareth rounded the corner, arms full of baby formula, diapers, a pacifier and other odds and ends. Sarah shot him a look that hopefully said, " _Where have you been?"_ and not " _I look forward to using your pet name later tonight."_

" _Right_ ," she thought, mentally rolling up her selves. " _Put all those acting dreams to good use Williams. Time to play happy families."_

Sarah forced a grin to her face, "There he is!" Jareth stiffened with slight confusion, as Sarah confidently strode over and wrapped an arm around his waist. After a moment of thought she stood up on tiptoes and pecked him on the check. She was so going to have to find the mouth wash tonight. Or bleach. Jareth opened and shut his mouth a few times before settling on a bemused expression. _"Most likely horrified that a mortal had the gall to touch him,"_ Sarah figured.

"Hello darling," he said faintly.

The shopkeeper nodded with a happy expression. "Such a wonderful couple. Come, you pay now," she waddled off with a slight spring in her step. Jareth, Sarah and the baby following close behind. While the little woman was scanning their items, Sarah's eyes trailed over the trashy magazines before settling on one that she didn't recognise. In bold print across the top it read: 'Ten things humans WON'T tell you: The benefits of having snapchat.' Sarah felt her curiosity perk. That was odd. Bea never told her the Under-grounders had their own magazines. Picking it up she put it next to the 24-pack of diapers.

" _Jared,_ why are we buying so many diapers?"

Jareth's eye twitched. " _Nappies."_ he hissed back.

Sarah blinked in stunned confusion, "What?"

"You're not in the Colonies anymore," he said through gritted teeth, "don't call them _diapers,_ you call them nappies."

Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. They had already had this discussion with numerous other objects. They were _biscuits_ not _cookies._ They were walking on the _pavement_ not the _sidewalk. Father Christmas_ was coming soon, not _Santa._ Jareth had then grumbled about how offended Nick would be if he heard her saying that.

"Yeah, okay, why are we buying so many _nappies?_ "

Jareth shrugged, "Goblins," he said as if it explained everything. Actually, it did.

"Fair enough," Sarah said grabbing the receipt. When she saw the cost of everything, she let out a low whistle, her eyebrows nearly shot off her face. "That is a lot of money for baby formula," she murmured.

"It's fine," Jareth said under his breath, "I'll cover it."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "How do you get so much money? Where do you even work?"

Jareth flashed her a grin as he carefully counted out the pound notes, before handing them over, "I'll tell you when we get home."

Sarah pouted, " _Overdramatic drama king,"_ she thought as she passed Jareth and the baby, picking up the bag of groceries. Lei Lin quickly reached over and shoved something else in there.

"Good luck charm!" she explained, "helps with fertility," she said waggling her eyebrows.

Jareth quickly wrapped his arm around Sarah's shoulders and half led, half dragged her outside before she had time to argue. From the moment she left the store, Sarah's stomach was growling like a humpback whale. After quickly disposing of the fertility charm, Sarah, Baby and Jareth located a Pizza place. A bearded waiter stood aimlessly in the doorway. He gave off the air of someone who seemed to say, 'Hey, I'm cool. Me and my beanie are going to chill here a moment.' and Sarah was amazed that his voice was so baritone considering how tight his skinny jeans were.

"Evening. Coming in for some totes delicious pizza and, like, the best home brewed beer you've ever tasted?"

Sarah nodded gratefully. Pizza. That was what she needed right now. A massive, greasy pizza. "Sounds great. Could we have a table for three please?"

The man shook his head. "Sorry babe, as much as we here at the Coffin Joe's Pizza Parlour and Micro-brewery respect that you like, want some downtime with the mini-man and your main man, we want you to know that we don't believe in the concept of tables as it ruins our totally jazzing vibe."

Sarah literally had no idea what he had just said but decided that maybe it was for the best to just get takeaway.

"Um... yeah... of course. Don't want to do that. Gotta dig those jazzin' vibes you got grooving around."

She heard Jareth snicker behind her as the man nodded solemnly.

"Amen to that sister. Do you want to come in and crash in the pillow pit? We bring out some pizza and you can relax to the sound of the universe?"

Sarah shook her head, "No thanks. Could you just bring out a menu and we get takeaway, maybe? It's getting a bit late for junior any way."

"Right-io, you the boss, lady," the waiter gave her a little salute, marching off. The pretentious jerk. He probably knitted socks for fun.

Sarah turned to Jareth, "What the hell just happened?"

Jareth winked with a smirk, "Perhaps if you chilly down a bit you'll find out... _babe._ "

When the waiter came back, Sarah was busy glowering in one corner and Jareth was stood as far away from her as possible, rubbing one arm and wincing, the baby grumbling in the other arm.

"Here you go!" he said handing over the menus, which were incredibly hard to read as they had been scrawled on an aged newspaper, purely for the aesthetic.

Sarah squinted at the writing. "Does that say... mushroom, pear and broccoli pizza?"

The man nodded as if someone had just told him the meaning of life. "Yeah bra. One of the best sellers."

"Doesn't that sound like one of the worst things in the world?" Jareth mumbled in her ear. The waiter sniffed indignantly, glaring seriously at Jareth. "I think you'll find that one of the worst things in the world, was actually World War Two. Or had you neglected the suffering of millions because of your dislike of the simple fungi?" Sarah flinched as she felt Jareth raise himself to full height, condescendingly staring down at the waiter. She was completely prepared for 'World War Three' when, fortunately, Baby decided that now was the best time to start wailing. Sarah looked apologetically at the waiter, "Sorry about that, I guess I'll just feed him."The waiter put up his hands in protest, "Babe. The vibes. Because it crashes the mellow, we don't allow breast-feeding."

"Shame," Jareth mumbled.

When Sarah glared over, he looked up innocently from his menu.

"What?" he asked, eyebrows raised, "they don't do Hawaiian."

Sarah turned back to the waiter, "We'll have two margaritas to takeaway please." The waiter nodded, scribbling something down on his note pad, "Two little Sonny Jim pizza's coming your way."

The next fifteen minutes Sarah found as challenging as the Labyrinth. Between Jareth and the baby, and the waiter offering her his mixtape; A harmonious blend of marbles sporadically being dropped on a xylophone, Sarah was surprised she made it back to the apartment in one piece. Steaming pizzas in one hand, baby supplies in the other. Quickly feeding the baby, Sarah changed its _nappy,_ as Jareth would have put it, and threw on her old Christmas film, ' _The Snowman'_ for it to watch while she and Jareth had dinner. A bleached haired David Bowie took muffled steps into what was, apparently, his darkened, musty attic and informed the viewers with a whimsical sigh that, "This attic was full of memories" for him. The baby gurgled happily at the glam-rock God as he now described how he spent all his summers by the seaside. Sarah decided immediately that the baby had great taste and would grow up to be president someday. Jareth stuck his head into the living room, "Do you want to just eat on the couch?"

Sarah shrugged, "Yeah, why not? Live on the _edge_ and all those _jazzin' vibes_ ," she said pinching her face and putting on the snooty voice of their waiter.

Jareth smirked wickedly, "Some _totes amaze_ pizza coming right up _boss._ "

Another fifteen minutes later and the baby was peacefully asleep (and _finally_ quiet). Jareth was sprawled across the couch, whereas Sarah was curled up, almost catlike, in an armchair opposite, munching contentedly on a slice of pizza, when a thought occurred to her. "How _did_ you pay for all that stuff tonight Jareth?" she asked inquisitively, flicking a stray piece of broccoli off her pizza.

He shrugged dismissively, "I have a well-paying job."

That perked her curiosity, "What do you do?" she mumbled through a mouth full of pizza.

Jareth stretched leisurely, "I work in a strip club," he said as Sarah choked on a hunk of pizza.

"You WHAT?" she gasped, tears streaming down her red, blotchy face.

He waggled an eyebrow, " _Gottcha."_

Sarah covered her face in mortification. _"I can't believe I fell for that!"_ she thought, vaguely horrified images flowing through her head.

"Although," he continued thoughtfully, "if you did _want_ me to try my hand at it Sarah, I wouldn't disagree. I could even practise with you, if you wanted."

"No, no! It's fine really," she said, her voice coming out a squeak.

"It's really no trouble," he purred, reclining on the couch, "I'm actually quiet limber-"

She had to stop this before he pulled out something _else_ from Soho in front of the kid.

"WOAH KAY! Stop right there, mister. Anymore from you this evening," she said, pointing her pizza slice at him, "and it is STRAIGHT to the goblin time-out zone."

Jareth's trademark smirk slid into place, "Okay then, my turn."

Sarah's brow crumpled with confusion. A sense of foreboding crept over her like a young person creeping back into their house after they've stayed too late at a club.

"What do you mean _your turn_?"

Jareth laced his fingers together, "Well you've asked me a question, so now I get to ask you one. Think of it like a game of tennis. The first one to not be able to hit a question back loses. Now let me think... Hmm," he tapped his chin, contemplating how to torture her first obviously. "Where do you go Tuesday afternoons?"

" _Easy,_ " thought Sarah with a sigh of relief, "Theatre club. We're working on this year's Christmas pantomime."

"What's the pantomime?" he asked.

"Oh no Goblin King!" Sarah tore off a chunk of her pizza victoriously, "my turn for the question now."

Sarah considered this for a bit. She wanted to know stuff yeah, but she couldn't just come out with something like, 'Hey Jareth, y'know back in the eighties and nineties? Did you ever hear... I don't know... a woman screaming out for your help over and over again? There's the slightest chance she might have sounded a bit like me? Probably promised you your wildest dreams in exchange for freedom? You wouldn't force her to pay up on that offer would you? No? Never heard her? Cool. Okay, just wondering.'

"When I was in the Labyrinth, I made some friends but they stopped coming after a while..." " _because someone told me that you'd kidnapped them,"_ Sarah thought, gnawing a lip, not that _he_ knew that though. It was a good question. It was pretty normal and not so weird to be asking. Unlike, 'Why have you got the same last name as me Mr. Creepy stalker?' for example.

Sarah leant forward, "Do you know what happened to them?"

Jareth settled back into the couch, munching regally on a slice of pizza. A miracle considering how much tomato sauce Sarah was certain was on her face."I haven't the foggiest. It's not as if you pushed them out of your life. I was quite aware of all the little... _catch-ups_ you seemed to be having, despite that fact that you never invited me," the Goblin King pulled a face like he'd just sucked a lemon. "Technically they should have been able to visit you whenever they liked, not that I wanted them to," he pursed his lips together for a second, "Usually the Labyrinth lets them visit whoever last beat it."

Sarah frowned slightly, "The _last_ person to have beat you? You mean others have beaten the Labyrinth?"

The way Jareth rolled his eyes as if to say, 'Well duh.' Sarah felt kind of miffed. It was a bit like when you were younger, finding out that another kid's dad was also called 'dad.'

"Who? How? What was their time? Did you do all that stuff with them?"

Jareth merely booted a bulbous nosed goblin (possibly self-named Steve. Sarah wasn't really sure as he wasn't one of her regulars) away from the pizza he'd been scuttling precariously close to. "I think that's more than one question."

"Fine," huffed Sarah, "Your turn, I guess."

They continued on like this for easily another three hours. Baby woke up once and Sarah had to vacate her armchair after Baby had left a rather smelly stain, but Jareth was more than willing to share the couch, her feet sitting in his lap.

Sarah had missed this kind of boy-girl company. She'd had lots of guys she could chill with back in America, because really in theatre at least one in three are just a little gay, but ever since her move to England she'd only really had her male work colleague. While he was great, he was also incredibly awkward. Sarah was glad she'd found this tentative friendship in Jareth. They continued his little game, discussing many different subjects until, that is, they started each discussing the first time they kissed someone.

"Mine is worse!" Sarah bragged proudly.

Jareth gave a smug smile, "Unless it was with a Goblin, I doubt it."

Sarah poked out her tongue, "You kissed a goblin? Ick. Don't tell me you got _that_ lonely."

"I didn't!" his voice rose defensively, "It was hardly my fault at any rate! The bloody thing was catapulted towards my face. That was the first assassination attempt on my life. You're lucky I'm still alive."

"And it was your first snog?"

Jareth waved a hand, "Details, details. You still can't beat it though can you?"

Sarah felt her cheeks flush with the scent of a challenge and her eyes sparkled triumphantly. No one could beat her! She was famous in her hometown. They literally called it 'Getting the Sarah' when you had someone you didn't like mooning over you.

"It was the summer after I met you," she said, setting the scene. "We'd just finished the school play, ' _The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe_.' It was great! We had a snow machine and everything! I played Susan and it was the best. Probably the proudest my mom's ever been of me."

Jareth nodded.

"So, we decided to have the after party at this rollerblading place, because, y'know, that was the cool thing to do back then. I was skating around, minding my own business, when suddenly the guy who played Peter, Susan's brother, I think he was called Ash Thomson or something..., but anyway he tripped in front of me and fell."

"And you tripped over too and landed on his face?" Jareth asked with a slight sneer.

Sarah grinned cheekily, "It was so much worse than that. I went to go help him up and then when I had, he didn't let go of my hand! I was trapped. It was so horrible. He had the knobbliest knees. I just figured, 'This is my life now. I'm stuck holding this pimply guy's sweaty hand forever.' And we keep going around and around the rink and he kept tripping, so I told him there was a room out the back for beginners where he could practise and he asked if I could help him get there, and being the idiot I was, I did help him. Anyway, long story short, he slobbered all over me, accidentally sprained my ankle and I ended up feeling like I'd committed incest because he'd been my pretend brother for the past few months."

"Did he have bad breath?"

 _"_ _Jareth!"_ Sarah play nudging him with her fluffy slippered foot, feigning scandalisation. "Don't ask a thing like that! I bet your teeth are half rotting out of your face."

"Are not! Crooked, yes. Rotting, no. Admit it Sarah, you'd much rather have my mouth pressed against yours, than that slobbering idiot's, wouldn't you?"

Sarah hadn't really been listening as the ex-Goblin King had captured her foot, and her heels had been killing her all day and god, his hands were just so wonderful. How did he even do that? He could definitely have been a professional masseuse. " _Maybe that was his job."_

Sarah sighed happily, snuggling deeper into the coach. "Hm? Yeah, sure. Mine was worse though," she closed her eyes sleepily, _"How much longer was that baby going to be here?"_ "You had maybe a split second of greasy goblin gob. I had to put up with Ash's slobber for- ooh."

Damn he was good at rubbing feet. Sarah considered letting him continue, as he pushed up the flannel of her PJ pants, but she'd read an article once about a man being paralysed for life after being poked in a pressure point on his foot and Sarah didn't really need that. Besides he could do all kinds of scary things when she was paralysed. Like stealing her stuff.

"Hands off grabby," she said firmly, giving him a nudge in the stomach.

Jareth held up his hands in surrender, "So Ms. Williams got pashed by her fake brother. That is quite bad. Not as bad as a goblin but it's up there," he admitted.

Sarah snorted, wiping tears from her eyes, "Sure, sure, you'd think but he did the same thing with Mrs. Beaver, The Snow Queen and some poor deer from ensemble after I'd left." Sarah felt the laughter quickly quiver and then shrivel up and die in her chest, leaving her feeling quite empty. "He's probably nearly fifty now," she added feeling melancholy, staring at the suddenly cold, unappetising pizza. She would _"get those bastards,"_ her internal mantra raged.

Jareth frowned suddenly, "What happened? All those years ago? Where did you go?"

Sarah opened her mouth to respond, when there was a sudden lingering smell of ozone crackling through the air. Before she could even blink, there was a blinding flash and the crack of a shotgun. Scrambling off the couch, she looked around to see the source of the noise, but she couldn't even see two feet in front of her face with all the strangely sticky fog hanging around. Somewhere across the room she heard Jareth coughing.

" _Shit._ "

* * *

 _A/N: And so now this has been updated too. Everything is being put in it's rightful place. All thanks to the most wonderful of betas: Sazzle76._

 _You know writing is a lot like being a pirate. You steal the stuff you like and say it's yours. Everyones got canons and ships. If I was a pirate, Sazzle would most_ _definitely be the first mate around here. Look how organised and clean the poop deck is! Aragh._


	5. King of Wishful Thinking

"Jareth? Are you alright?" she called across the room.

"Fine, I'm fine," he coughed, "could you open a window or something? I can't breathe with all this bloody fog."

"Yes," she said, " _That was strange. Where had all this glittering fog suddenly come from?"_ she wondered, groping her way towards the window. The fog was incredibly thick, like wading through molasses and it was enough to give someone with the lungs of an ox an asthma attack. As suddenly as the fog appeared it began to part to reveal a figure standing by the window. Despite herself, Sarah's mouth fell open, " _Woah..._ " she gaped. _Wait!_ Had she said that _out loud?_ She realised that her mouth was still hung open like a cod fish and shut it with a snap. Usually Sarah didn't act this way around men but...she let out a sigh. Usually men weren't so good looking. She'd gotten use to Jareth over time but this was a whole other playing field. Dark hair ruffled gently in the non-existent breeze, which led down to a rugged five o'clock stubble on his chin. A few goblins scuttled around his feet, polishing his shoes and spritzing the general area. He was practically dressed in jeans and a pair of loafers, " _which perfectly outline EVERYTHING!_ " her inner voice squealed. Sarah somehow found her voice again, "You're him aren't you? The New Goblin King!"

The man flashed her a grin of perfect teeth so bright white, even Stevie Wonder would have seen them. "Yep! 'Tis I! The _one!_ The ONLY! The Goblin King!"

A short, squat goblin she didn't recognise but suspected was the one who hid the remote control around the house, pulled a trumpet out of his pocket and gave a disheartened toot.

"Granter of all your deepest darkest wishes and maker of dreams come true!" he continued with a roguish wink, "at your service."

Sarah promptly forgot how to use her voice again, "Sarah Williams," she cheeped, extending her hand, which he grasped firmly between both of his. Strangely ungloved and calloused, was the one coherent thought that crossed her mind. Sarah would have melted into a puddle had it not been for Jareth, who warmly wrapped him into a man hug, which involved lots of thudding each other as hard as possible on the back to assert male dominance over one another. To be honest, Sarah observed, it wasn't any different than two gorillas banging their chests at each other in a zoo. Two _really_ good looking gorillas. One with really beautiful brown eyes and a killer suntan. _"Was that drool?"_ Sarah quickly wiped her chin as the two ended their 'hug.'

"Nephew! Although I'm _more than happy_ for you to come and collect the baby, could you have done it with _less of an entrance_? I honestly believed someone was attacking my home," Jareth said rolling his eyes like it was normal to have ones super, amazingly good looking nephew explode into your living room.

 _"_ _Nephew?"_ Sarah gawked as the Goblin King spread his arms and gave a half-hearted shrug.

"I'm sorry Uncle, but you know what they say, I learnt from the _best_!"

Jareth let out a chuckle, shaking his head, "That you did, you scoundrel, that you did."

The Goblin King grinned, "So where's the baby? It was hard enough making up excuses for where he was, let alone _the girl_ running it again."

Jareth jerked his head, "Over there on the couch. How did the runner do? No serious damage to my Labyrinth I hope?"

"None at all," he said scooping up the baby with one arm, "She got stuck in the swamp of perpetual nagging and surrendered twenty minutes later. She won't be bothering me anymore. I'll just take the little fella here back with me to the Underground, fill out the required paperwork and I have a done day."

Sarah's eyebrows shot up in concern, "Wait!? You're not giving the baby back to the girl?" she spun to face Jareth, eyes narrowing furiously. "You told me that the babies were always returned to their parents these days! I can't believe you, can I? Why is it that even after all this time, I still can't trust you!" she exclaimed angrily, snatching a cushion off the couch and lobbing it at his head. It bounced the bewildered Jareth harmlessly.

" _You_ can't trust _me?"_ his bewilderment quickly becoming a sneer, "You work for a company that goes behind the public's back to make a living! And what, my darling Sarah, do you believe that says about a woman like you?" he drawled coolly, taking a step closer.

Sarah raised her chin proudly, forcing aside her anger, "It means that I'm willing to help people and protect them from danger."

" _Oh no, no, no_ Sarah," he hissed softly, "You can lie to yourself, but not to me. Go on. _Tell me._ Tell me it's because this is what you _crave_. The danger. You _enjoy_ this. Having a _terrible_ villain to save people from. I gave you your first hit back in my kingdom _all those years ago_ and you have to keep coming back. Back to this. Back to me. Because. You. _Need._ It."

"That's not what this is about Jareth," she said trying to keep the hurt tone out of her voice.

"Isn't it?" he smiled coolly, displaying a row of crooked teeth.

"No it isn't and you know it! This is about you telling me that the babies were returned home and that baby," she pointed to the baby nestled in the arms of the Goblin King, who was munching on a slice of cold pizza, watching the discussion with much interest, "is not going home. Why would you lie to me? So I didn't think you were a terrible person for stealing babies away from their loving families? So _you_ tell _me,_ why isn't this baby going back to the girl?"

The Goblin King, who had just finished scolding a goblin for trying to eat the couch cushions, stuck up his hand. "I can explain that," he said, leaning back smoothly on the couch. "It's this girl you see, completely obsessed with me unfortunately, you know how it is."

He winked conspiratorially and Sarah's heart thudded against her chest. _"Like a Greek sculpture,"_ her mind whispered.

"Anyway, this girl has taken to just wishing away babies she doesn't even know to get my attention, and the goblins, they don't know if it's her baby or not and really just respond whenever someone says the words. In fact, I'm pretty sure this little tyke," he tickled the baby under the chin until it gurgled happily, "was snatched from his pram in the Elven Kingdom. Anyway, it's all sorted now." He slid off the couch, popping and cracking his joints, "So I best be off. Get the little one back to his parents. Thanks for the pizza. It was nice seeing you, especially you," he said, giving Sarah a dashing grin.

Jareth cleared his throat, " _Forgetting_ something nephew?"

The Goblin King rubbed his hand over his scraggily stubble, "Let me see... I have the baby... Got rid of that _pestering_ girl... I think that's about it..." his eyes flashed and he snapped his fingers. "Wait a second. The Vial! Gizmo," he commanded the short squat goblin in an authoritative tone, "bring me The Vial."

Gizmo reluctantly let go of the pillow he had been gnawing on and produced a small, glass vial from a grubby pocket. The Goblin King tossed it to Jareth, who deftly plucked it from the air, inspecting the amber liquid with a nod before slipping it into one of his pockets. Saying his goodbyes for the second time, the fine specimen of manho- The Goblin King, disappeared with a deafening crack, leaving Jareth and Sarah alone, apart from one stray goblin, who had been left behind.

"Jareth," Sarah began, knowing that it would eat away at her for ages if she didn't try to make amends with him. "I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. I guess I still have some issues from before but I shouldn't have doubted you. You've been nothing but honest this past week and I was out of line." She extended her hand to the fae man who eyed it suspiciously. "Truce?" she asked hopefully.

After a moment's hesitation, Jareth took the offered hand. "I too should apologise. I wanted you to admit things that... neither of us are ready yet. I don't want to ruin... This," he said gesturing to themselves and the apartment. "Whatever this happens to be."

Sarah gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, "Good. I'm glad Jareth. I like this too. We'll talk more in the morning."

Sarah hardly remembered brushing her teeth or putting on her pajamas that night. The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the pillow. And then the dreams came. They weren't every night per say but they were frequent. A constant niggling that she couldn't quite reach and fix. Most of them started out in the dark but at the moment Sarah was in an apartment. Not her apartment obviously. Her apartment didn't smell of cough drops and elderly people medication, but it was the same layout as hers. The couches here were a clashing floral and covered in plastic sheets that old people seemed to be so found of. In the background a TV blared, playing a British game show. A deep red carpet sprung under Sarah's feet. This was weird, she thought, nearly dodging out of the way of a coffee table with incense burning in a delicate holder. That was before she remembered that she wasn't really there and just went straight through it, causing the incense to flutter. She was usually... someplace else, she shuddered. Looking down Sarah caught the attention of a fluffy white cat, who glared at her evilly with thin yellow slits.

"Who's there?" snapped a voice from one of the chairs. Even weirder, usually they couldn't see or hear her. A small woman, with a face like a wizened apple and hair curlers coiled tightly in her hair, leant forward. She looked a bit like Lei Lin, except in twenty years' time. Another cat, this one was a tabby by Sarah's guess, was curled up on her lap.

"Hello," Sarah said politely, still wondering how she could be seen. "Who are you?"

The woman scoffed, "Who am I? Who are you?"

Sarah blinked, a little taken aback, "Um... well my name is Sa-" she dodged the cat that went sailing past her head with a yowl.

"Dumb girl. Don't you know names have powers? What did they teach you in school?"

"Math, I think?" said Sarah faintly. Usually people weren't as animated in her dreams.

The woman snorted, "Math? _Math?_ Math is not going to help in the real world. Come. You sit. We watch the 'Wheel of Fortune.' You'll see."

Sarah pre-cautiously perched at the end of the sofa. The fake-tanned man on the TV grinned at the camera, "Thanks for that Kelly, and now a word from our sponsors."

Sarah watched with fascinated horror as the TV presenter's eyes rolled into the back of his head, twitching and his voice turned hoarse.

" _Beware false friends,_

 _Wherever they lurk._

 _Their means to an ends,_

 _May cause much irk._

 _For they plan the Underground and our world into raze,_

 _Lest the girl with the wishes ends their ways."_

The TV presenter convulsed and frothed at the mouth before coming to a shuddering stop. He grinned at them with bleached teeth, foam sliding down one side of his face, "And we're back ladies and gentlemen."

Sarah turned to the woman, who was hunting for the remote under a truly hideous crochet pillow, "What the fuck was that?"

The old woman finally found the remote, "Boring," she shrugged, flicking through the channels.

Sarah eased back into the couch, focusing intently on the screen. She wasn't going to argue until she was certain how many other cats this woman had hanging around.

A pale blue woman doing yoga.

A celebrity chief screaming abuse at another celebrity chief.

A twenty-year-old soap opera.

Jareth perched on a bar stool.

Another soap opera.

 _"_ _Jareth on a bar stool?"_

"Wait! That was my friend. Go back."

The woman glared at her, "What's magic word?"

"Umm... Please?"

"No. Foolish girl. I must teach you later. But now, we go back."

Sarah leaned forward as she watched the flickering picture. There was Jareth, in full Goblin King glory, sprawled in a completely undignified manner against a bar, with what appeared to be the new Goblin King.

"Uncle, I don't see what the problem is."

Jareth hiccupped slightly, glaring blearily at the Goblin King, "No, you wouldn't, would you Antonio? Do you know what I have done boy?"

The Goblin King, apparently now called Antonio, shrugged, "Haven't the foggiest, Uncle, but please do tell. God knows I need a good story. What have you done to get you more stone drunk than a goblin on new year's?"

Jareth snorted, joltingly lifting a dusty, and clearly expensive bottle towards his lips. "Goblin on new year's. Good one. What have I always taught you?"

"Always make an entrance?" Antonio asked, gently lifting the bottle out of his hands and setting it down on the counter.

"Yes. Yes, good," he said trying to focus on Antonio as he slowly slid off his stool. "Entrances, do them. But you are also wrong. So Yes, but no. Nononononono," he shook his finger, "the other rule."

Antonio hoisted Jareth off the ground. "Erm, well, I'm going to guess that it's not, 'Never fall in love with a woman who looks better in tights than you,' so would that be, 'Never fall in love with potential wish aways?'"

Jareth nodded, smiling brightly at his nephew, "Yes, that is the one, and I, being the shameful cad of a being that I am, have broken both the first rule, the third rule and possibly the second. I wouldn't know. I haven't gotten that far. And I don't plan too. I plan to wallow in my self-pity. Forever."

"Oh," Antonio patted Jareth on the back, looking mildly bemused. "How about instead of doing that, you go out there and you show her your Goblin King mojo? Then, she'll fall head over heels for you. You'll get a Queen, you can stop wallowing. It'll be an all-round great time."

Jareth waded through the swamp that was clearly his mind. "You really think so?"

Antonio nodded positively, "I know so."

Jareth glanced around, perhaps looking for the bottle that had recently been confiscated. "It doesn't matter," he said with a sigh.

"Why not?"

"It'll never work," he said mournfully. "She's feisty. Not to mention, underage."

"Is she happy?" inquired Antonio.

"Oh no. She's dreadfully depressed. Stepmother hates her. Then there's the baby. Gets all the attention. None for her," Jareth groaned, burying his head in his hands, "my poor darling."

Antonio moved the bottle a little further out of reach as Jareth's hand inched towards it.

"And what about..." Antonio looked about the room before lowering his voice, "the feminine thing? Is that all covered?"

Jareth scratched his head, "Well, yeah... I mean, I presume so. I've never asked. I've never even _actually_ spoken to her."

"The beginnings of a perfect relationship..." Antonio mumbled under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking. Anyway, listen Uncle, she's not happy, you can grant her wildest dreams _and_ if what you believe is true, then by mortal standards, she is of age!"

Jareth blinked slowly, "She is? How do you know that?"

"Queen Victoria told me. Once a lady is regular, she is totally up for marriage," Antonio said proudly. "Mortals aren't that progressive so I doubt the rules have changed much. If I was you, I'd probably hurry it up a little with the whole wooing thing. She probably has a ton of men waiting to marry her. What if you slip her the book, she wishes away this baby brother of hers? Then she'll be yours. No woman or man alive has ever resisted your charms Uncle!" Antonio beamed at him.

Jareth rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That is true. It could work I suppose," Jareth stared into the distance. "She'll be so happy, she wouldn't even think to argue or question my power over her. I could take her away from that dreadful place, give her everything she cou-"

"BORING!" the woman yelled at the TV, snatching up the remote before Sarah could even argue and hitting the fast forward button. "I have seen this bit before!" The TV screen whirled forward until it reached a new scene.

"King Jareth of the Goblins step forward," a firm female voice boomed. Jareth, who had been lounging beside Antonio in what looked like Judge Judy's court room, stepped forward, grinning at the camera as if they held a private joke.

"Can I help you?"

"The Court has come to a decision."

Jareth lazily leaned against the table, eyebrows coyly raised, "Have they now? Please, _indulge me_."

"For your charges; Interfering with a runners course for personal benefit, purposely allowing mortal consumption of Fae food, Defeat and Loss of Power and Neglect of Kingdom, we the Court decrees that you are guilty beyond reasonable doubt."

Jareth shot the voice a darkened glare, "I see," he said shortly. "Well, I have seen the error of my ways. I suppose I should go back to the Goblin Kingdom and fix all tha-"

"No Jareth."

"You shall refer to me as _Goblin King,"_ he growled.

"Not anymore," the voice continued coldly. "Because of your crimes against the Underground, the Council have elected to strip you of all but the basic powers and banish you to the land above. There you will dwell amongst the mortals until you right what has been wronged."

"That's incredibly vague of you," was the taunting reply.

Dramatic music flared and a red card came across the scene reading:

 _Jareth, The Goblin King, now Jared Williams is currently living happily in the Aboveground. If you or any of your relatives feel like wishing yourselves away to the goblins, call the number below. Remember that there are always other options and those who care about you._

With a flick of her wrist, the woman turned off her TV, scratching the ear of an ginger cat who had suddenly slinked around her legs.

"That was a good session. Much was learnt."

Sarah was still confused that the woman had a TV that could see visions and was yet to answer. The woman nodded to herself, "Yes, much was learnt, but our guest must go now." The woman picked up the cat, who mewled in protest, "Say good bye to the strange see-through woman, Mr. Tibbles."

The cat meowed balefully as Sarah felt a sickening tug on her stomach.

" _Fuck,_ " was all she had time to whisper, before she awakened.

She was in a warehouse of some sort, the windows so streaked with dirt that it could have been midday or midnight. She was painfully aware of her hands tightly manacled to the steel table. After what seemed like an eternity, a man in a grubby smock appeared in her limited line of vision. It was presumably a man, though Sarah had a tough time guessing as all she could see of his face between the surgical mask and the hair net was a greasy strip of skin and a pair of flat, grey eyes.

"So good to have you back Miss Williams," he said in a featureless voice.

Sarah stuck out her tongue, "I'd love to say good to be back Mr Smith, but I do so hate liars."

Mr Smith, who had been pulling a number of fine blades, caked in brown-ish blood, out of a small leather bag, rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

"Shall we quit with the melodrama and get on with this, Miss Williams?"

Sarah grit her teeth together, "Gladly Mr Smith."

The man wiped his instruments on a set of old rags, "Let us begin."

The rest of her night was spent screaming out to anyone she believed would save her. Sarah couldn't have been more relieved when the sun finally pierced through the crack in her blind back at Brick Lane. She sucked in a breath of cool air. She was home. Not back at that bloody warehouse. Safe and warm in her own bed. Incredibly warm considering the broken heater. With a pair of legs entangled with her own. _"Now that was unusual,"_ Sarah thought sleepily rolling onto her side. It wasn't until she was facing a pair of mismatched eyes that she realised how unusual.

"Go back to sleep darling," he grinned softly. "It's still early."


	6. Sleeping with the Enemy

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belong's to Jim Henson._

 _Butts, butts, butts, butts, butts._

* * *

Sarah had many regrets in her life. It was a normal thing, she figured. Who didn't have regrets. ' _Why hadn't I gone there? Why hadn't I done this?'_ One of her more recent regrets was not shaving since the end of November, but it was quickly replaced with not lacing her entire room with iron.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" she asked with more than a little shock. The blank grey of Mr Smith's eyes was still burnt into her retinas. The dream continued to churn through her mind like clothes in a washing machine, messing with her thoughts. Jareth sighed contentedly, winding an arm around her waist. She felt like he was stifling her, like she was back on that table.

"You wished me here," he drawled smugly.

It took all of Sarah's power to stop herself from shaking. Her head was spinning from that horrible nightmare and she felt like someone had roasted her eyeballs. She forced herself to calm down, although Jareth's hands had begun to skim over a rather sensitive spot on her lower back. She forced herself to remain calm and found that her initial shock was quickly giving way to anger.

"Stop that," she growled, swatting the hands away from her rather raw back, "you're hurting me."

Sarah felt his fingers fumble over a deep scar that was unsuccessfully healed with lumpy skin, bringing Mr Smith's words back to the front of her mind, _"He can hear you, he just doesn't care."_

"What have you been doing to yourself Princess?" he muttered sleepily.

Sarah ignored the question, "Get out of my bed Jareth."

The arm tightened around her waist, "No," he said stubbornly, "you wished me here."

"Get Out!" she snarled.

Jareth's eyes glinted dangerously in the early morning light, "Make me."

"Fine! Only because you insisted," Sarah's leg thrashed out, slamming her heel into his thigh. Jareth landed on the cold floorboards with a dull thud and a grunt, dragging the mountain of blankets with him. Sarah hissed as the cold air hit her. She was certain she had been wearing a pair of fluffy, flannel pajamas to bed, but now all that was left was a ratty bra and a holey pair of underwear, which had lost most of their elastic. " _This day was just getting better and better."_ If it hadn't been so cold, Sarah would have been fuming.

"What have you done to my pajamas? you conceited _little_ shit!"

Jareth shrugged elegantly, "You were shivering. I had to preserve your body heat."

"You fucking liar. Why can't you just respect my personal space like a normal person?"

Jareth had the dignity to look mildly offended, "I respect your personal space all the time!"

Sarah scoffed, scrambling across her bed to use her pillow as a shield.

"Just the other day, I swear to you. I can distinctly remember respecting your personal space on Tuesday."

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM JARETH!"

Jareth sniffed in a dignified manner, "Fine. Only because you insisted," he said in a whiny, high pitched imitation of her voice. He slammed the door behind him, taking all the blankets.

"Stupid Fae," she grumbled, dragging on the green turtle neck she wore from their first time at Costa's. "Bloody going around fucking ruining EVERYTHING!"

After putting a pair of thermals on, Sarah shimmied into a pair of jeans. Her hair looked like a rat's nest but it could wait. Stalking her way into the kitchen, she found Jareth already there making two cups of tea.

"We need to talk," she said firmly.

Jareth stared at her coolly, "That much is obvious."

"You shouldn't have done it. Showing up in my bed like that just because you wanted to."

Jareth set the kettle down on the stove with an angry thunk, "You _wished_ me there," he said between gritted teeth. "You, with your dratted sleep talking. I _clearly_ wasn't the one who _wanted_ that."

Sarah put her hands on her hips, "So you _had_ to do it? Because I wished it?"

"... Not necessarily _had to..._ " he said reluctantly.

Sarah groaned and thudded her head against the door frame, " _Why did he have to make things so difficult?"_

"Don't think yourself so grand love," he spat, "I would have answered a wish under any situation."

 _"_ _Maybe that's why Chris had to leave,"_ Sarah thought. " _Because she'd tried to wish her and Jareth into a relationship. That would be like trying to take control of someone's free will wouldn't it?"_

"Did Chris ever wish something similar?"

"Damn you _,"_ he hissed, turning back to the kettle which was emitting a shrill cry.

"Did Chris ever wish something similar?" she repeated more slowly.

"Of course she did!" he thundered.

"Did you grant her wishes? That's what you just said yeah? _I would answer a wish under any situation?_ "

Jareth slammed the kettle onto the counter top, sloshing boiling water everywhere, "What does it matter?"

"It matters a lot! This is about choice! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO _CHOOSE_ JARETH. _If_ you ever make it that far with me, which I'm highly doubting, I should have the right to choose when and where. You can't just go basing it off a half-assed wish not even said consciously because IT'S WHAT _YOU_ WANT. What happened to _not_ ruining this?! In case you'd forgotten, _you have no power over me._ So tell me Jareth, DID YOU INDULGE CHRIS? DID YOU GRANT HER WISHES?"

"NO! And you want to know why, _my little pet_? Because that darned Crystal never led me on. She was completely upfront with her feelings _and_ her wishes. She didn't suddenly appear in my life after _thirty goddamn years_ of nothing, and ask to be friends. _Just_ friends I might add. Ha, as if you and I could ever be _just friends._ "

"I never said I didn't want anything more. I just didn't want to be rushed into things! I never asked for you to show up!" Sarah yelled, "I never asked for you to have my last name! Never asked to feel uncomfortable in my own home! I never asked to have terrifying nightmares night after night! Sometimes I think, 'That's not fair.' But you wanna know something Jareth? Life isn't fucking fair," Sarah spun on her heel, walking towards the door. She couldn't stand this! She _had_ get out. Now.

"Where are you going?" he asked angrily as she yanked on a boot.

"Out!" she replied in a similar tone.

" _Where?"_

"Oh, you know, to my _job._ Where I make money to pay for this stupid flat. What? Am I not allowed to do that?"

"No, It's Saturday. There is no work."

She tugged on an overcoat hanging on a hook by the door and snatched her keys up.

"There's always work stopping people like you!" she snapped. With that, she slammed the door behind her. " _You have no power over me,_ " she grumbled to herself.


	7. Bert and Vera! Wonder Thugs!

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belong's to Jim Henson._

 _Haiku's_ _are hard. Leaf._

* * *

Sarah tumbled to the ground and rolled behind a bin. Flimsy protection sure, but protection nonetheless. Panicked gasps escaped the throat of the man next to her. "Oh dear, oh dearie, dearie me. We're really up to our heads in it this time Williams," he muttered, sliding horn-rimmed glasses up a crooked nose.

The cold night air sent snatches of laughter from outside the alleyway.

"Shut the hell up Hudson, or they'll hear us," Sarah growled. A stream of bullets pinged off her bin. "Too late," she grumbled.

Ryan Hudson clutched at the paper wrapped parcel with one hand. The other anxiously moping his brow, hidden under a mass of curly blonde hair. "They can't know I have it," he hissed.

Sarah eyed the parcel and then a takeaway box, leant against the bin, that was roughly the same size. A plan formulated in her head. Another bullet flew past, causing Ryan to nearly jump out of his skin.

"Pass me your jacket," Sarah said.

Gingerly holding the takeaway container, Sarah wrapped it in Ryan's rather ugly plaid jacket, making another parcel about the same size as the first. It was pretty convincing if you ignored the sweet and sour sauce seeping from one corner. Ryan groaned, trying a little harder to press himself into the brick wall. "Couldn't you have used your jacket?"

"If you had come up with the idea, you could have used my jacket," Sarah said.

"But you would have gotten angry," Ryan whined.

Sarah nodded. "You're right. It's probably for the best we used your jacket."

Ryan opened his mouth to argue but Sarah shushed him as a booming voice called out. "All right, we know you're there. Hand it over and you won't get hurt."

Sarah peered cautiously over the edge of her bin, catching sight of a man in a tattered coat and a woman dressed head-to-toe in leather. They looked as if they were trying to blend in with the streetscape but were failing quite miserably, which is saying something for London. She ducked as another round of bullets went whizzing by her head, missing by inches.

"I can't believe it," the woman squawked. "It's insulting this is. Don't they know how _dangerous_ we are Bert? _Trained Killing Machines_! That's what they call us back on the block. And who do they send to stop trained killing machines? Some mousey guy and a uni student. It's like _Kill Bill_ versus the librarians. I should shoot you both just for the impertinence of your kind. What do you reckon Bert?"

Sarah decided that she really didn't like this woman and that the ninjas that obviously angrily hacked at her head, judging from her hideous haircut, would come back and finish the job.

"Now, now Vera," the man said reproachfully. "Be nice. All we have to do is get the doomsday amulet for the boss off these nice librarians. _Then_ you can kill them."

"Um, if you please," Ryan squeaked to the pair, glasses slowly sliding back down his nose. "I'd really rather not die."

"Well that's really not your decision, is it now?" the man, Bert, called out. He slowly approached the rubbish bin with Vera in tow. "I mean, at the end of the day, is death anyone's choice? You could have been hit by a truck sprinting across the road trying to get away from us just then. One of Vera's bullets could have ricocheted and hit me in the face. That lady friend of yours could have died peacefully in her sleep just last week like that Prince fellow. That's why you've got to make the most of the moment."

"So you're destroying the world?" Sarah asked, turning to face the pair. Vera clicked her gun out of safety.

"What can I say?" Bert looked down at her, shrugging. "I really hate Saturdays."

Sarah's palms sweated as she watched Vera raise her gun so it was level with Sarah's chest, who was clutching Ryan's jacket like it was a feeble, plaid shield. The one day Sarah decided not to babysit her favourite goblin fae and this crazy woman decides to put a hole in her chest. She couldn't die, she thought as her heart banged frantically against her chest. Not like this. If she wanted to be shot, she would have stayed in the U.S. Hell, she would have moved to Chicago. A grin spread across Vera's face. "Say goodbye little girl." Her finger wrapped around the trigger and squeezed. The gun made an empty clicking noise. With a grunt, Vera pulled the trigger again, resulting in another empty clicking noise, and another, and another. Bert rolled his eyes towards the sky. "Well that's just brilliant isn't it?"

"It's not my fault!" Vera snapped back, fiddling with her rough waistcoat guiltily.

"Then whose fault is it then Vera?!" Bert exclaimed. "The nice librarian's?" he said, pointing a fat, salami shaped finger at Sarah. "No Vera! She probably just finished sorting her books for the evening and was about to pop home and catch the last ten minutes of _EastEnders_. Maybe have some time alone with her significant other. Maybe her significant other is the other little tweed wearing librarian over there."

Ryan spluttered out a disagreement, furiously turning red.

"Shut up! It's a compliment. She's a fine looking woman and I'm sure she has a lovely personality too. If I had re-evaluated my life's choices earlier, I would certainly have had a go. As it is, if she doesn't hand over that parcel she's got in her hands, I'm most likely going to snap her pretty little neck," said Bert cheerfully.

Sarah pulled the sticky sweet and sour parcel closer. "Please sir... If we give you the parcel, will you give us a minute to run for our lives?" Sarah asked in a way she hoped seemed like pathetic grovelling.

Bert looked at Vera and nodded. "What do you reckon Vera? We give the nice lady and the tweed fellow an extra minute to live?"

Vera stared at her empty gun glumly. "I guess so."

"Aww, come on love. You can test another one of your weapons out on them instead."

Vera's head perked up at this. "That could be fun."

Bert chuckled good-natured way. "Yes it could," he turned back to the pair, who had slowly been inching their way to the mouth of the alleyway.

"Yeah, alright. You give us the parcel and you can have your extra sixty-seconds of life."

Sarah didn't even stop to question it. She grabbed Ryan's hand and flung the bundled up parcel at Bert's feet. Then she ran.

"That was my favourite jacket," Ryan said mournfully.

"Hudson," Sarah growled, "if we get out of this, I will buy you all the fugly jackets you want, but until then. _Just. Fucking. Run."_

Two hours, a marathon of running and a broken ice-cream shop window later, Sarah was back at the office moodily glaring at the silver necklace, which was lying innocently on Bea's imposing office desk in front of her. Picking at her top, which was thoroughly stained with hot pink sludge, she grumbled slightly. " _Why hadn't she babysat the ex-Goblin King today? Surely the chances of being covered in ice-cream would have been slightly less."_

"We went through all that trouble... for _that_." Sarah groaned.

Bea flicked some still melting ice-cream from Sarah's hair. "Sarah, Ryan, you should be proud. Because of your help today, we've saved the world from Armageddon. Protected countless lives from corruption. What the hell were you expecting?"

Ryan, whose hair was sticking about in strange gloopy, blue-green angles, adjusted his glasses and peered closely at the necklace.

"Something a little bigger perhaps?" he asked timidly. "I mean, it's called the _Doomsday_ Amulet. Couldn't we have gotten something a little more gothic-here-lies-the-end-of-your-mortal-days and a little less..."

"...Tiffany and Co." Sarah finished for him. "And honestly ' _The Doomsday Amulet'_ What kind of a name is that? It sounds like something a twelve-year-old boy with a _Dungeons and Dragons_ addiction would call his little sister's plastic, dollar shop necklace."

Bea folded her arms. "Hmm, I think y'all just angry because you went flying through an ice-cream shop's front window."

Sarah snarled, pulling at her uncomfortably sticky shirt. "You'd be angry too, if you were covered in tutti fruttii."

Ryan sighed morosely, attempting to clean a large smudge from his lenses, but ended up just swirling it around on the glass. "Actually, I'm covered in bubblegum and lime. And I don't have a jacket."

Bea shrugged, pursing red painted lips. "I really don't give a fuck."

Ryan sadly stared at his arms, which were still covered by his business shirt,,and a sweater in an unappealing shade of olive green, and a cardigan from at least the 1800's.

"I feel naked," he stated sadly. "That jacket and I have been through a lot."

Sarah patted him gently on the shoulder, wincing at the claggy feeling the ice-cream left behind. "It was a brave sacrifice Ryan, but someone or _some_ jacket had to do it."

"I still feel naked," Ryan whimpered.

Sarah groaned, rubbing her forehead. " _It has been a long day. Too long. I should be in bed. Maybe with some ice-cream,"_ Sarah shifted in her seat, miraculously finding a new sticky patch. " _Scratch the ice-cream part, maybe custard. That was a Christmas-y English thing right?"_

"Would you like to borrow my coat until you get a new one?" Sarah asked wearily.

Ryan nodded slowly, struggling to comb his hair into a sense of normality with his fingers. "Yeah, I guess that could work."

Bea rolled her eyes, as Sarah reluctantly shrugged off her over-coat. "Just let me grab my wallet," Sarah drove her hand into the deep pocket. " _Honestly, it is slightly ridiculous how big they are made. I could have found Narnia by now_." Her fingers brushed over something glossy and crinkly. " _What was that?"_

Sarah pulled the long forgotten, And rather bent, magazine from her at the busty, red-headed fae with pointed ears beaming at her in a bathing suit. The all too familiar head line ' _10 things humans WON'T tell you: The benefits of having snapchat._ ' Sarah tossed the jacket towards Ryan, ignoring his yelp as he was buried under the mass of fabric. Instead, she began absent-mindedly flicking through the pages of the magazine. She tried her best not to linger too long on the blaring title in neon letters, ' _Mortal Lovers. Is it worth the under compensation?_ ' instead settling for the safer page, ' _Corsets to Bras, how to make the transition_.'

"Did you know the magical community had their own magazines Bea?" she asked curiously.

Bea laughed heartily, swinging back in her swivel chair. "That's not the half of it. You name it, they've made a cheaper imitation than an illegal Chinese market. Magazines, children's books and toys. I saw this wack-assed version of Harry Potter, where Harry had been wished away to the Goblin Kingdom," Bea kicked her feet out on the desk, causing Ryan to wince and mumble something about scuff marks. "Even the media. Instead of Pay TV. Fae TV. They've got their own version of Facebook. Except, get this, they call it _FAE_ book."

"Faebook?" Ryan asked, peeking his head out from the massive coat. Being about a head smaller than Sarah, it would no doubt drag along the floor behind him, making Ryan look like some weird, clean-shaven version of Gandalf. " _Or a small hobbit wearing Gandalf's clothes. Come to think of it all hobbits were small," Sarah thought,_

Bea nodded affirmatively. "Yeah, I can show ya if you want," she said, clicking on the rundown computer stationed at her desk.

Ryan and Sarah gathered behind Bea, jostling each other for room. The screen was set up completely the same way as Facebook would have been, except the calming blue colour had been replaced with a hot pink. Staring at the pixilated screen, Sarah, rather slyly, thought of something. "Look up the Goblin King."

Bea pulled back her lips in a grimace. "Nu-uh. I am not stalking your creepy ass roommate. You do that _off_ company time."

Sarah shook her head, tucking a tacky piece of hair behind her ear.

"No, not that dickhead. The current guy. Antonio."

"Dickhead huh?" Bea repeated, while she arched a well-manicured eyebrow. "Anything you need to share?"

Sarah waved it off, leaning heavily on the back of Bea's chair. "Maybe later."

Bea's fingers clacked loudly over the keyboard. "Alright."

After a good solid half-an-hour of peering at photos of Antonio the Goblin King, Ryan muttered something about getting a change of clothes when Bea reached the 2007 holiday to Greece. This was perhaps that due to the amazingly warm climate. Antonio had spent the majority of his time lounging on a beach in _Speedos_. It may have been nothing compared to Jareth but... " _Wait!"_ Sarah shook her head, mildly horrified. " _That's it,"_ she told herself sternly. _"No thinking that kind of stuff. Especially not when you're pissed with the guy."_

Bea closed the tab, but not before bookmarking it, the moment Ryan left. "Alright-y!" she rubbed her hands together. "He's gone. What's been going on baby girl?"

Sarah allowed her head to hit the desk with a satisfying thud. "We let Bert and Vera get away," she said halfheartedly.

"Oh no honey. Don't you fib to me! I know it's more than that."

Sarah peeled her face off the desk, rubbing at her eyes, where cruddy ice-cream had begun to congeal. "I got home from work last night, and Jareth had a baby but apparently it was an elf who had been wished away."

Bea shrugged. "Happens sometimes. Why'd Jareth have it?"

Sarah waved a hand vaguely. "Could be the goblins' twisted sense of loyalty, maybe his nephew, the Goblin King, Antonio or whatever, needed a babysitter so there we were. I started an argument with Jareth, and this stupid pizza guy! I got given a fertility charm and I'm twenty-one. I'm fertile. Why the fuck would I need a charm for fucking? And she thought I was with Jareth, who if he was a superhero would probably be called 'Captain Sex.'"

By this stage Sarah was wringing her hands, crying hysterical tears of exhaustion. "During the course of the night, I think I admitted I hated my first kiss to Jareth, possibly also that I did own a picture of myself in a thong, but only because he implied things about his tights. Then, when I thought that hell of a day was over, I had this dream-"

"One of _those_ dreams?" Bea who had been taking all this in, let her forehead wrinkle with concern.

Sarah sighed gloomily. "Yep. There was this guy, yeah. Some TV show host or something. And he was all like 'ooh, you have friends that are false, and they do a lot of lurking.' Then he said something about rising or razing the Underground, unless I stopped them."

Bea bit her lip thoughtfully. "That... Doesn't sound good. Did the TV host tell you _why_ he was doing all this shit?"

"Well no. I was just watching the TV in some crazy, Asian cat lady's house and then she changed channels and we watched some weird vision of the past meets _Law and Order_ show in which Jareth, who the night before told me he didn't want to ruin or rush our friendship, drunkenly admitted to Antonio he wanted to, I'm not really sure... Wed fifteen-year-old me? Or some other underage girl I don't know about..."

Bea nonchalantly flicked a non-existent piece of dust off her desk. "One case of stalking in the eighties."

Sarah smacked herself in the head, realisation on the other hand hit her like a ton of bricks. "Holy shit!" she hissed. "It's me! I'm staying in a flat with my childhood stalker."

Bea nodded. "Probably getting Stockholm Syndrome as we speak."

"Don't say that!" Sarah whispered frantically. "Not after I woke up next to the guy!"

"Sarah!" Bea did her best not to look disgusted. "It's been a week, girl. Get some standards!"

"No no no no no! Not like that! Well... A little like that. I didn't have pajamas on, but that was his fault," Sarah really tried to stop herself from blabbering everything. Bea didn't need to hear about the time Jareth left the bathroom door open or anything. "I was having the dream that I was back in America when they were doing the testing," Sarah unconsciously shuddered. "Anyway, back at the facility, I was always in so much... pain. I used to just wish out to anyone I thought could save me. Hoggle, Ludo, brave little Didymus. The list started to grow short and no-one had shown up. I was just so desperate. I called out to Jareth. Apparently I sleep talk and he heard all this and took it as an invitation and I was so _pissed_ with him. I wanted to know if Crystal, that messed up past roommate of his, ever got the same treatment, because I dunno, if he had to fulfil a wish I guess it wasn't really his fault. But NO! He can pick and choose, which means he has some sick, stalker, power fetish thing," Sarah struggled to find the words. "And if I slip up again, he'll probably come back and tell me if it's in my dreams then I must want it. I just want a way to keep him out of my room," Sarah finished crestfallen, feeling like she'd had the earth lifted from her shoulders.

Bea pulled a small box from under her desk, sliding it to Sarah. "I can help you with the last one. Just remember the troll. Under the bridge. Make sure Hudson has a jacket."

* * *

Sarah hummed happily to herself, thudding cold, blue-grey, iron nails with a trusty hammer her father gave her, around her doorframe, her windows. Anything a shifty fae could view as an entrance.

She heard the front door rattle open, and the sound of foot falls coming towards her bedroom.

"Sarah, my darling?"  
Sarah paused in her hammering for a moment before continuing with a renewed vigour, humming like a crazy woman.

"Sarah, I was thinking. About this morning. Let bygones by bygones. Water under London bridge, Forgive and for-"

She smiled sweetly when she heard the thump of a body against the wall.

"Get that stuff away from me." He rasped.

Sarah turned to Jareth, offering him a wide grin.

"Can I help you?"

His skin, which was the colour of curdled milk, was visibly clammy.

"Iron." He hissed, sliding down the wall.

"Blessed by the Pope!" Sarah confirmed cheerfully. "You know, you fae are all so funny. So strong, like nothing can touch you, but get within three feet of pure, 100% iron that got touched by some old dude and BAM!" She swung the hammer at one of the remaining nails to _really_ show him that she wasn't to be messed with. _Nothing like poisoning your perverted, stalker flatmates to keep them at bay._

Jareth groaned, his head rolling unstably, "Why are you so cruel, my precious thing?"

"Not your precious, Jareth. You're not gollum, and I'm not the ring." She said with another flash of teeth, "I'm also not your darling, your doll face, your angel wings. I might be your love but you're certainly not mine and if you call me babe again, I'm replacing your shampoo with bleach."

Sarah felt incredibly proud of herself watching Jareth slink off muttering a string of curses. She had just about finished with the last of the nails when she heard a crunching sound.

A pile of Goblins dangled from her bedside table, munching on the nails. _Guess it only repels fae_ , she thought grumpily.

"Hey guys," she said with a forced smile, "I'm kind of busy right now if you wouldn't mind?"

One of them let out an over dramatic sigh, swooning like a B grade soap opera star. "But old King won't play with us."

One with a strainer on his head let agreed, nodding to the extent that it looked like he was having a serious seizure.

Sarah smelt a big, fat, glittery, rat. Goblins were nearly as bad as their old King when it came to dramatics.

"Yeah. He's CRY-ing like a baBY beCAUSE the girl who ATE the peach broke his heart... Again."

The jolting, start-stopping speech was nearly as painful as pubescent boys reading Shakespeare in year eight drama class. Clearly they had been put up to this.

"Because you DID IT the first time in the Labyrinth. And now, you're um... doing it again. Bad girl."

The shortest one stared at his palm for a few moments, mouthing something written there, then piped up.

"Said he... cued-? Wait no damn. Couldn't? COULDN'T leaf-"

 _"Live."_

"-Live without yous."

"Sarah hammered a rogue nail a little more firmly in place. What a dick. Sending poor, stupid goblins to do his dirty work. Had the man no shame?

"That's nice."

"We even wrote a song about your love. It's called 'Lady Sarah."

Before Sarah even knew what was happening, rubber band banjo's and pots and pans drum kits were being pulled out. A terrifyingly squawky, eighties themed tune began:  
" _I had a girl. Her name was Sarah._

 _Never met any chick fairer._

 _She had good eyes._

 _I'm sure they saw lots of things._

 _Ten perfectly good fingers._

 _But she never wears rings._

 _Yes she's the girl who ate the peach,_

 _And won the the heart of the old King's."_

The whole group joined in for the chorus and Sarah thought her ears might bleed.

 _"Oh Sarah. My lady Sarah._

 _Never met a girl, any fairer."_

The one lone Goblin was back to his demented crooning.

" _Yes our old king,_

 _Boy he loved her a lot._

 _Though he gets us to steal._

 _Her bras an' her jox._

 _Yes our old dear Jareth._

 _Loves lady Sarah a lot,_

 _But they say the bulge,_

 _Is just a wad of socks."_

And back to the chorus. Sarah by this stage was bawling.

"I think we broke her."

"Oh no! What will the not majesty say? If she's broken then he collected all that underwear for nothing!"

"What's she doing? Someone hit her over the head or something!"  
"How will that make her stop!? What if We break her even _more_?"

"Iono! Maybe he _wanted_ her to cry."

Sarah rubbed her eyes, trying to rid herself of tears of pain.

"Sorry you guys. I was just crying because the song was so... Beautiful."

The Goblins beamed proudly at one another.

"It was so great in fact that I'm sure Jareth, who I have fallen head over heels in love with him because of that song, would like to commemorate this special day by waking up _bright and early_ to that song _everyday."_

"You really think so?" Strainer hat asked hopefully.

Sarah smiled sweetly.

"I know so."

* * *

 _A/N: Hello everyone,_

 _How's May doing for everyone? Not really sure what's going to happen after this. We'll see. The cliche used for this chapter was: Villain has literally no reason to do what he's doing. He just does._

 _Cliche not used: Sarah gets cornered and calls out to Jareth for help because she cannot solve problems._

 _i.e._ Sarah watched in horror at the welling blood that was about to spill on the floor. She gasped in terror as she realised that it probably wouldn't stop bleeding. "J-Jareth!" She murmured faintly, "Save me..."

Her forest green eyes widened as a burst of glitter filled her vision. Slowly from the shadows, The (sexy man beast) Goblin King emerged. His eyes were full of sadness and longing and other shit labyfic authors put there. His eyes also widened in realisation.

"Sarah..." His voice was obviously English, "Did you call me because you had a paper cut?" He asked his voice turning to outrage.

Sarah shrugged nonchalantly, "I couldn't reach the bandaids. I thought you could reach, because you wear heels and all."

Jareth glowered because it's important he comes off angsty and moody, "Despite what you may think, there is actually more to running my Kingdom, than seducing teenage girls and kicking goblins."


	8. Just one of those days

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belong's to Jim Henson._

 _Hey, I'm back. Sorry._

* * *

 _A/N: Due to the current circumstances in the United States, I just wanted to let you know that if you feel afraid or confused at the moment, then that's okay._

 _My inbox is always open if you need a chat about anything and those of us in other countries support you._

 _Hang in there._

* * *

 **This chapter is dedicated to the amazing Fanfiction author and my favourite Canadian, lovelyamberlight, who gave me a stunning idea for my last fan fiction. Unfortunately I forgot to thank them for it.**

 **Lovelyamberlight, I'm sorry I forgot.**

* * *

It's extremely rare for the Gods to bless you personally so that all your bad luck will fall on one day. That privilege was usually reserved for people who wanted to start wars and various presidents of the United States.

Not for small town, all American nobodies like Sarah.

Sure, wearing _that_ scrunchy with t _hat shade_ of electric blue eyeshadow in her senior school picture had been a mistake, but Sarah, if anything, was able to laugh at herself. Not at all a curse from a higher being.

She knew that _some_ people would have said that the Labyrinth would have been the worst experience they'd ever had, but not Sarah. No siree.

And sure, it had been a pretty bad day when she had been tricked into leaving the safety of her home and ended up twelve hours later being dissected on a metal slab, but Sarah was proud to say that if anything, she was adaptable and had learnt to move on.

At least she would move on when she saw all her captors in prison or dead.

She was easy that way.

It wasn't even the worst day of her life when she'd finally escaped and found out that the photo they had plastered onto all the milk cartons _had_ been her senior photo.

No, the worst day of Sarah Williams whole life, she had decided, was today. To say Sarah was having the day from hell would be like saying that her time in the Labyrinth was a piece of cake.

After waking up late and stubbing her toe on the bed, she managed to stagger to the bathroom before staggering out again retching. Apparently the goblins had burnt a tire or something in the bathroom, resulting in a crusty film of black ash over the mirror that honestly looked like the souls of the damned had tried to crawl from it's depths. So after the fastest shower of her life, she was less than impressed to find that most, if not all of her bras were missing.

This, of course brought to the front of her mind the infamous line, " _Yes our old king, Boy he loved her a lot. Though he gets us to steal her bras an' her jocks."_ from the one hit wonder, 'My Lady Sarah.' It honestly got better the third time around.

Revenge that was. Not the song.

It was probably still rocking the charts around the goblin kingdom. She briefly considered asking the dear, sweet Goblin King for her bras, but she wasn't about to bow and scrape to get them back. Now that she thought about it, he probably kept them for weird fetishy reasons. Sarah shuddered and not just from the freezing cold.

 _Ew._

She was more than a little repulsed by that thought. Maybe she didn't want them back after all. It wasn't just the bowing and scrapping that got to her though. She hadn't really spoken to Jareth since the iron nails incident and the only time they'd gotten even close to physical contact is when their fingers brushed as she had passed him the salt once over dinner. After that it quickly got awkward and Jareth had excused himself not long afterwards, still clutching the salt shaker in a balled up fist. Maybe he had a shrine made of her bras and salt shakers she'd touched at various points in her life.

After an unsatisfying breakfast of toast and coffee (much to her horror, Sarah had found that she'd gotten a mild addiction to Jareth's tea but there was no way in hell he was going to find out from her), she went to her one promised glimmer of joy in the mornings. Advent calendar chocolate. Even though everything else was turning to shit, at least she still had chocolate, or at least she did until she caught a handful of grubby fingered goblins with their mitts on the box. Much to Sarah's surprise, they had _tried_ to apologise in their own special way and in an attempt to make it up to her, they told her that Jareth hadn't really been crying the other day. He'd just told them to relay this information to her so she would feel guilty and come crawling back to him (Which, the goblins had admitted, confused them as they were not quite sure why he wanted her to be crawling when standing would be much more practical).

"Prick!" she snarled, dragging her brush through a particularly vicious tangle. It wasn't nice that he would try to use her feelings against her like that, so she didn't even feel all that bad when she told the goblins to give him his little wake up call. Which was going swimmingly. The dark smudges lurking under his eyes told her that 5:30am starts really weren't agreeing with the fairy bastard.

The walk to work did not improve her already sour mood, as she accidentally walked through the ghost in the hallway, snapped the heel of her new shoe in a crack in the pavement and got drenched after her umbrella blew away in the wind. At least Jareth wasn't there to ogle her through her now see-through top. _Honestly! What is going on today? Had someone from work cursed me or something?_

It clearly wasn't her partner Ryan, however. He had discovered a rather terrible allergy towards the ice cream he got covered in when running from the brutal Bert and villainous Vera, **_ass_** assins extraordinaire. Emphasis on the ass. The so-called killers were still on the loose and poor Ryan was high-as-a-kite in bed, covered in a nasty patchwork of hives and dosed up on antibiotics.

And because Ryan was sick, she had to look after his temperamental client. A rather vicious nymph draped head to toe in tie-die and wooden beads with thick dreadlocks, braided with rather unsanitary bottle caps and bits and bobs found washed up on the river bank. She was upset about being flushed down the toilet, and Sarah was upset that despite the woman being a water sprite, she seemed to have an aversion to showers. Two and a half hours of listening to a smelly hippie rant about the terrible pollution level of the Thames, can really wear a girl down. So Sarah may have mentioned that said smelly hippie had the temperament and the aroma of the Bog of Eternal Stench. Which may have led to the nymph cursing her office so it would have indoor rainstorms every fifteen minutes. Not only did this short-out Sarah's computer, getting rid of her report that she'd been writing on the doomsday amulet, it also left her office space smelling strongly of spoiled eggs.

This was not because the hippie sprite couldn't take a bath like normal people, but because a magic's smell reflects the user's intent, which was something Sarah had learnt pretty early on. Someone does something good with their magic? Great! Your office will smell like cotton candy and freshly cut grass for the rest of the week. Do something bad with your magic and... well.

Sarah had a strong inkling that was actually how the Bog of Eternal Stench was made. Jareth, Sarah had just happened to notice (not that she was paying _that_ much attention) usually smelt like burnt sugar and toast. Although it ranged between charred, to a crisp toast, to perfectly buttered with jam and sunshine, depending on his mood.

After lunch when she'd finally managed to get rid of the rolling black clouds, Sarah was reminded of her assignment with the drug dealing troll, which she was more than looking forward to if it meant this day could be over. Sarah managed to hobble home, finally collapsing through the door at six o'clock, which she only knew because the goblins always watched 'The Chase' at that time. Sarah swerved around the pack of goblins who were currently attempting to answer the ten-thousand-pound question, "What's the capital of Sweden?" and sagged against the kitchen bench. _God I need a cup of tea._

"S! S is the capital of Sweden!" her eyes flicked over to Jareth, who was hanging upside down off an arm-chair, scrolling through his phone. His hair looked a bit like a hedgehog when he hung upside down.

"How can you be so stupid?" squawked the goblin with the purple belly, "IT'S ABBA YOU IDIOT! ABBA IS THE CAPITAL!"

 _If I said sorry and bent over low enough_ , Sarah wondered thoughtfully easing her shoes off her blistered feet, _would he consider making me a cup of tea? Surely the boob sighting and a conversation with someone other than a goblin would be enough of an apology for him._

"THE CAPTITAL IS FISH!"

 _Would Jareth make me a cup of tea?_ That was her ten-thousand-pound question of the evening.

Jareth glanced over the top of his phone, gnawing on his lip pensively. "Sarah?"

The fact that he was initiating conversation with her after the iron nails incident was enough to send her into shock.

"Yeah?" she asked cautiously, flicking on the kettle.

"What does, 'ILY, your BAE' mean?"

 _Who the hell was texting him? A sixteen-year-old girl? Was he using Tinder or something? Now he knows I am not going to be an option when it came to his itches!_

"Um... well," she pondered how to explain text slang to a potentially thousand-year-old fae for a second, sitting up on the bench and swinging her legs.

"ILY means 'I love you' and I'm pretty sure 'Bae' means 'Before anyone else,' but, um, it's not serious or anything. It's kind of what you'd call your boyfriend or your girlfriend, I guess. Don't say it in public though. I'd probably have to disown you." She said jokingly.

The Goblin King pursed his lips and began tapping an aggressive reply back to the sixteen-year-old tinder girl. "I see. Good for you," he sneered. "May your young love with ' _Ronnie_ ' blossom and bloom."

Sarah slid across the bench into the living room. How the hell did he know about Ronnie Duke? Unless... she hadn't been able to find her phone after lunch. Up until this moment, Sarah had just presumed that it was lurking at the bottom of her bag but if the goblins had taken it... Sarah felt her stomach drop. The cup of tea would have to wait.

"What? Jareth is that my phone?"

Jareth swung off his chair with the grace of a cat, skipping away from her closely followed by his goblin entourage.

"You'll let me know when the wedding is, won't you?"

Sarah stumbled to snatch her phone, only to have the Goblin King prance out of the way.

"How did you even get that? I took it to work with me! Give it back Jareth!" she growled.

Jareth pouted, "Always trying to ruin my fun, aren't you sweetness? What do you reckon boys? Should I give the Champion her little love letter back?"

It was like Jareth had just asked the goblins if she wanted to commit mass genocide against a race of fluffy, adorable kittens.

"Nah!"

"NOOOOO!"  
" **You should eat it!"** bellowed one particularly excited goblin, scratching at his flaky scales.

Sarah ducked, narrowly avoiding another who had decided he was going to swing off the lampshade like Miley Cyrus in ' _wrecking ball.'_

"Boo. Boo," chorused the goblins.

Jareth tapped the phone against his hip.

"Now what should I do with something as _private_ and _personal_ as this?"

"Eat it?"

"Nah!" one of the goblins with a rather nasty purple/greenish tinge to his nose and feet, looked up at Jareth with adoring, albeit rather scary, glowing red eyes, "His ex-majesty should read the Champions little love letter."

"Read it?" repeated a particularly thick goblin.

The idea caught on faster than that one ancient library full of dry, dusty scrolls containing the mysteries of life, that caught on fire last week while she and Ryan had been snooping.

"Read it!"

And that day hadn't even been as bad as this one for Sarah. Even though she'd nearly lost her eyebrows.

"Read it! READ IT! **READ IT!** "

Sarah felt beady eyes peering out from every crack and crevice in the apartment. Under the couch, behind the pantry door, in the fruit bowl. A stadium worth of goblins. The chanting was louder than a football crowd, and the Goblin King's expression lit up like that of a kid in a candy store.

"Hey babe," Jareth sounded like a truckie who had been chain-smoking for the last forty years. Clearly this is what he thought Ronnie would sound like.

The goblins cheered like Jareth had just kicked the winning goal of the match.

"BABE WITH THE POWER!" Whooped the Goblin on the lampshade right before is flew across the room with surprising velocity, landing with a squelch against the wall.

As it slid down the wall, the mortified Sarah watched Jareth press a finger to his lips with a satisfied smirk, drawing a deafening round of silence in less than a second. Sarah felt embarrassment bubble in the pit of her stomach. _This is worse than the time dad found my diar- erm journal, describing how much I hated Karen. God, I won't be able to face Ronnie without blushing tonight._

"Jareth stop it! Please? It's not what you thi-" Jareth shushed her, moving his finger to her mouth while simultaneously keeping the phone just out of her reach.

"You still up for drinks tonight?" Jareth gasped, pressing the phone against his chest in mock horror, "Sarah! I'm shocked. A secret rendezvous with your forbidden lover?" Jareth swooned against the back of the armchair. "To think, the scandal. What kind of example does this set to the goblins?"

He danced out of the way of Sarah's outstretched hand as it grabbed futilely for the phone.

"Give it back, you no-good, stealing, stupid owl faced jerk." Sarah was so bloody frustrated that she was close to screaming.

Jareth paused mid skip, sneering down his nose. "No, I don't think I will. What's said is said."

Sarah tripped over a goblin and landed on the floor with a pained oof, only to have half a dozen goblins jump on her and hold her down. _God they are stronger than they look._

"You can't use that line on me mister!" she wheezed, trying not to lie anywhere the goblins had spilled something hot pink or sticky, "I haven't even wished anything away this time."

Jareth stood on the center of the coffee table, looking all for the world like a preacher about to deliver a message from God. Sarah knew all about this because the goblins thought it would be fun to watch ' _Life of Brian'_ at two in the morning once.

"Wear something nice this time," he purred. "I'll see you at seven. Ily, your bae Ronnie. Kisses and cuddles."

He leapt off the table to crouch in front of her face. The only thing Sarah was thankful for was that Jareth couldn't wear tights anymore, or she would be seeing a hell of a lot more.

"My, my, my Sarah. Wear something _nice?_ Something tells me that little ickie Ronnie-kins seems to be under some sort of design. What a terrible example you're setting too. Going out for drinks on a Wednesday night. Disturbing the peace. Will I have to send out a goblin search party to make sure you come home safely? Well?" he swung the phone back and forth between two fingers.

"Anything to say Sarah dear?"

"I hate your guts," she groaned, shoving a goblin with a pencil like nose off her arm. _Great, my work shirt is basically destroyed. Goblin gunk was up there with red wine and chocolate on the list of things you can never ever, ever remove from clothes._

"Sarah, you wound me," he said standing up and brushing off his pants. "I'm only looking out for my _favourite_ flat mate. What if this Ronnie bloke decides to get you plastered this evening?"

"Yeah, she probably will," Sarah said, sculpting her face to look as if she was admitting a terrible defeat, "Veronica always could throw them back."

Jareth's triumphant face faded to a stony grey. "Veronica?"

Sarah clambered to her feet, finally managing to throw off the last of the goblins.

"Yeah, Veronica Duke. She was the lead in a play I was in a few years back."

"Veronica?" the phone hung slackly in his hand, "Ronnie Duke is a _woman?_ "

Sarah nodded in a serious, if not exaggerated way, carefully prising the phone from his loosened fingers. "Jareth, what kind of a guy ends his texts with 'kisses and cuddles?' Last I checked, Ronnie's a girl." Sarah stood thoughtfully for a moment, "She did use the women's dressing room all throughout 'Guys and Dolls' so I mean I really hope she's a girl," she said, checking her phone to make sure Jareth hadn't sent anything that could potentially offend the rather delicate drama crowd.

After deleting a rather ominous text that was yet to be sent asking Ronnie if she liked games and mazes, Sarah went back to making her cup of tea, ignoring the apparently brain-dead Goblin King standing in the middle of the lounge.

By the time Sarah had finished her tea, Jareth was still staring incredulously, the goblins dissipating long ago, apart from the one who'd swung off the lamp shade, who was lying on the floor twitching and mumbling something about chickens.

Looking at the clock, she swore. Half an hour to look presentable enough for the theatre crowd. It was more likely that she could run the Labyrinth in that time.

Rushing to her room and frantically flinging through her wardrobe, she came across a dress that she was pretty sure the theatre geeks had never seen before (because god forbid you wear the same thing twice) and could maybe be classified as 'vintage.' Hopefully. Stooping in front of her mirror, she began to slap on some make-up.

 _Holy fuck, I'd forgotten all about tonight. What am I going to do? If I show up without a guy, Ronnie will rip me to shreds._

The theatre crowd had always been like that.

You wanted a lead in a show?

Then you better be prepared to get hot n' heavy with the director. Most likely backstage. It was all about who was dating who, and who was cheating on who with who, and whether or not it was done in the 'hired' costumes. It made it even worse when the owner of a company would say that the cast was like 'one big family' because that was super wrong, unless they were all off ' _Game of Thrones'_ or something.

It hadn't been really bad until her final school play, ' _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe',_ which not only led to the roller blading kissing incident, but also involved a complicated relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Aslan and The Snow Queen. Of course the show had to go on, even after Mr. Beaver and The Snow Queen had found Mrs. Beaver making out with Aslan in the props room. It had given a whole new meaning to the word bestiality, and the audience could have sworn the Snow Queen really meant to stab Aslan in the battle scene that night.

So yes, she needed someone to be her fake 'significant other' but if she showed up with Ryan, they probably wouldn't let them in. _After all, his face is pretty gross at the moment. He would have fit right in with the goblins._

Sarah paused for a moment. _God, too much make-up. Too much make-up!_ Grabbing a couple of tissues, she started to dab some away. She usually dragged Ryan along to these things. He made an excellent fake boyfriend. She took him to all her theatre gatherings and she went to his family Christmas dinners and awkwardly declined his mother's mashed potatoes. Sometimes she got leftovers. It was a pretty good arrangement. Maybe she would force the hive covered Ryan out of bed so they could all pity him and she could be peacefully ignored.

Sarah paused in her dabbing. _Okay, definitely less orange and cakey now. Or,_ she thought carefully applying a tube of four-year-old mascara, _there was that one woman in work who had the pretty, sparkly blue hair. Wasn't she always up for a drink?_ Sarah was pretty sure she had her number _somewhere._ _What was her name again? Heather or something? She might be up for it... But then again, the gills might be too hard to cover up on such short notice._

Sarah was beginning to grasp at straws. Her last roommate was a definite no and was probably too stoned to pick up his phone anyway. _Chris?_ Bit of a party girl yeah but probably a bit too dangerous to take to something like a night out on the town. _So Ryan isn't up for it. Taking a fae fresh from the Underground wouldn't be a good idea, and stoner roommate would be the last guy on earth I'd ask. Or was he?_

Sarah nearly poked her eye out with the mascara wand trying to forget what she'd just thought.

 _No. Nope. No, no, no. Definitely NOT. Jareth would be a terrible guy to ask._

 _Or would he be?_ she thought as she slicked on a rather expensive lipstick she hoped she'd never have to use. He was good looking, which was important to the theatre crowd. He was flirty as all fuck, which was important to the theatre crowd. And boy, did that guy have flair or what? Jareth oozed style like a noxious gas. He basically ticked all the boxes.

The only problem was, Sarah was still annoyed with him. Well, sort of. She had kind of stopped feeling really pissed with him yesterday afternoon. Now she was left with the normal disgruntled-ness she felt in the glittery git's presence. She was just lucky her acting skills had held up. _He read through your phone_ , she warned herself, slipping a couple of costume rings on.

 _Yes,_ she countered, _but really what do you expect? He's the Goblin King. He could have found the photo of you in the thong by now, but instead he only read a text from a flaky friend._

Rolling a pair of tights on, Sarah weighed up the options and cursed herself. On one hand, he was a conniving, twisted son of a bitch whose feelings for her were probably faker than Paris Hilton's boobs, and in a way she got that, on the other hand, she had literally just described all the theatre gleeks. _God, why can't I hold grudges longer?_

Giving the mirror a final nod and dousing herself in a can of deodorant, Sarah decided that she might as well ask him. It wasn't like he'd take it seriously and start sending out wedding invitations.

Making her way back into the living room, Sarah found that Jareth was still standing there completely shell shocked.

 _How would be the best way to approach this?_ she wondered, checking under the couch to see if the goblins had hidden her boots there. Maybe just take the band-aid approach and go straight for it.

"Hey Jareth, I was wondering if-"  
Jareth's hand snapped out in a stop signal.

"Sarah, I refuse to believe you."

Sarah looked up from her crouching position, wondering if she should put her hair up or leave it down. _Would I look too uptight if I wore it up?_ she wondered dragging one of her boots from under the couch.

"What?" she asked, looking about for the other boot, more than a touch bewildered.

"This whole 'Ronnie is a girl' ploy, or 'Veronica's not some-way interested in you' scheme," he said, mostly to himself. "I just don't believe it. Why would she tell you to dress nice if she's actually a woman and just an uninterested women?"

"Um, because she's a judgmental bitch?" offered Sarah, leaning on her knees. She found the other boot tucked behind a cushion. While shaking the snoozing goblin out of her other boot, Sarah wondered if there was some way she could trick him into going, then he wouldn't ever say she asked him out.

"Anyway, I'll leave you to your suspicious theories. I gotta get going," she said pretending to check her watch.

Like a flash, Jareth was blocking the door, arms spread out wide like the world's most aggressive hugger.

"Sarah, you can't go. I _know_ women like this. You think it's all fun and games until you're standing next to their toy poodle wondering how you became their next fashion accessory at the spring fling festival, and they have planned all your future children's names, genders and star signs."

Sarah smirked, grabbing her keys from off the coffee table and tucking them in her purse.

"Making assumptions about my friends already? Is that a personal experience from the great and mighty Goblin King? Pssh, please! Ronnie's straighter than Pythagoras' ruler. Oh what powerful and wondrous knowledge my liege graces me with. How will I ever repay him?" Sarah sarcastically asked curtsying deeply. She _knew_ those ballroom lessons would pay off one day!

"You can repay me by not going," he growled, snatching her purse and putting it down.

Sarah purposely picked it back up.

"Aw," she clutched the purse to her chest and pouted at him, "And there I thought the big, bad Goblin King was going to be my 'knight in shining armour' and offer to come with me."

"Done," Jareth grabbed his coat decisively, "Your wish is my command precious."

Part of her whooped. She'd done it, she'd done it! She had fooled the almighty Goblin King. Now was the harder part. Acting like she didn't want him to come while still getting him to come.

"What! No. You are _not_ allowed to call me precious and you are _not_ meeting my friends," she howled in indignation.

 _God I'm a good actress. Someone should give me an Oscar_ , she thought, shoving Jareth away from the door. "Sod off. I bet you wouldn't last five minutes in the theatre crowd."

Jareth spluttered, before marching back over to the door.

"Please," he rolled his eyes while shrugging on his coat, "I made the theatre crowd. Besides, I've said it before and for your benefit I'll say it again, what's said is said."

Sarah, harrumphed, tossing her hair about. "Well you can't go like that," Sarah said, eyeing him up and down. "You look like you got dragged through the Bog of Eternal Stench backwards."

In a speed change that would have made supermodels jealous, Sarah found herself ushered out of the building, no less than three minutes later by an immaculately dressed Goblin King. It seemed that she had made a horrible mistake.

Not only did it seem that Jareth had been gifted with a Fairy God-Goblin who had brilliant taste in clothing, but he was also determined to make the theatre geeks love him and his glittery ass. Hair back, tie off, swagger in place. In short, the smug prat was handsome and he knew it. Looking back hopelessly at the apartment, Sarah caught a glimpse of the sullen ghost girl staring at her from behind an ugly floral curtain.

" _Save me,"_ Sarah mouthed desperately.

The girl just smirked and waved.

 _Bitch!_ Sarah scowled, glaring out the taxi window. _She's probably still upset about being walked through this morning._

Watching the yellow lights of the city flicker by, Sarah did what she always did when she needed to think. She talked to herself. She found that she made a lot of sense.

 _Jareth, that is to say your sexy-GAH,_ ** _NO_** _. No, no, no..._

 _Um. Attractive?_

 _Yep that'll do. Attractive, funny and fairly kind flat mate will be coming with you to meet your friends._

 _Is this a bad thing?_ she asked herself as they rounded a corner. _No. Not really. People introduce friends to other friends all the time._

 _However, it will raise some questions, and you've been working with fae long enough to know that they REALLY can take things a step too far._

Sarah's brow furrowed as she tapped her chin.

 _You could be getting yourself into some deep shit if Jareth believes you truly 'like, like' him._

With that final thought they arrived at what Sarah could easily describe as the second most hipster place in all of London, ever, right after that one pizza place with the broccoli. _Hipsters._ Sarah shoved a few crumpled notes at the taxi driver. She just didn't get them.

Making her way inside with Jareth tagging closely behind, Sarah cast a glance around, looking for her friends. Firstly, exposed brick. Everywhere humanly possible. For some reason hipsters loved bricks so much the food was probably served on them. The restaurant was set up with those annoying lightbulbs that were pretty but never cast enough light. The faint yellow light shone dimly and bounced off the plastic covers of some 'Happy Days' styled booths, and if she squinted Sarah could make out a bar with a couple of stools.

"Yoo-hoo! Sarah!" if Chihuahuas could have a voice, then it would be Ronnie's. "Over here hon!"

Sarah flicked a stray piece of glitter off her jacket and set her game face, determinedly making her way over to the booth, Jareth sliding in next to her.

 _Great. Stuck between a wall and a hard fae._

Across from her was Grace, the lead from last year's ' _Mary Poppins'_ production, and her boyfriend, Fama (Fama was not his first name or his last name and at this point Sarah was too afraid to ask).

Then came the bleached haired, blue eyed Cameron, frequent ensemble member, right-handed henchman who pledged his undying loyalty to the High Queen of Drama, aka Ronnie, and about as straight as Elton John's left leg.

And there, right in front of Sarah, the mega-bitch herself. Veronica Rose Duke.

Sarah had known many evils.

In fact, she was sitting so close to her childhood nemesis that their knees were touching, but no-one could quite surpass Ronnie Duke. She was cunning and her tan screamed that she was either rich enough to go to Spain frequently, or get a sprayed-on one every other week. Of course there were other theatre geeks here and there but only the privileged few got to sit with Ronnie.

"Sarah," she smiled, showing more teeth than _Jaws Three,_ "Long time no see. How are you babe?"

She was the real life Regina George. Feeling Jareth bristle beside her, Sarah easily slid a hand into his, returning a dazzling grin of her own.

"Simply amazing Ronnie darling. Say, have I ever introduced you to my old friend Jared?"

After a few minutes of social obligations and introductions, Ronnie and Jareth were talking like they had known each other for years. Which made sense because they were both monarchs within their own right. Cameron, who had felt jilted had left to get drinks and not come back.

"Say Jer," Ronnie leaned over the table like they were sharing a massive secret. "Has Sarah ever shown you photos of her acting career?"

Sarah sat bolt right up. _Oh dear._

"Why no! she hasn't," Jareth mockingly grinned at Sarah like the cat that got the canary. "Sarah!" he pouted, "I'm wounded. You know how much I love watching you act."

Ronnie grinned maliciously, pulling out her phone like it was a sword that she was going to use to stab Sarah's social life to death with.

" _Ooh!_ Here's a great one of Sarah when she played a prostitute in Le Mis. Do you remember that Sar?"

Ronnie put on the most awful cockney accent she'd ever heard.

One of the main things that had confused Sarah about Le Mis. _Really, if they were supposedly French then why was all the singing done in cockney accents? It was the same with the Labyrinth really. Everyone had an English accent..._

Her pondering was interrupted by Ronnie tunefully squawking.

" _LUV-lie LAY-dies waitin' for the call._ Come on Sarah this is that bit where you grinded up on the sailor. _Standin' up or lyin' down or anyway at all._ "

Jareth's razor sharp grin spread to show another few teeth. "Well I'm up for that."

Sarah just wanted to smash her head open against the exposed brick wall.

Watching on in mounting horror as Ronnie produced photo after photo of her wearing little to nothing. Like a goblin on a sugar high, nothing could stop her wave of mass destruction.

"And here's her playing a stripper in _Guys and Dolls._ You should have seen her shimmy. One night she didn't have time to tape her boobs and they just straight popped out. POP!"

"Ron," Sarah protested feebly, "I really don't think Jared wants to see-"

Her voice fell on deaf ears as Jareth poured over the phone.

"This one's _very_ good. Would you mind sending it to me?"

"Course Jer!" Ronnie simpered, "Anything for a fan of Sarah's!"

 _Great, now Jareth has a stripper photo to add to his shrine of bras and salt shakers._

At least if she ran into the exposed brick wall she'd die a martyr.

Unfortunately, it seemed like Ronnie wasn't done yet. Although some may have just thought Veronica was a nice girl who was just a little too enthusiastic about her friend's acting life, Sarah knew better. There was that constant malicious glitter in her heavily mascaraed eyes, the twitch of lip glossed coated lips whenever she caught Sarah shifting uncomfortably, the irritated clack of freshly manicured nails when Sarah didn't react.

"Aw Sarah, this is a really cute one of her as a lap dancer from ' _Burlesque'._ Didn't Rachel star in that one Sar? What a fucking chav. Anyway Jer, if you ever run out of moves, get Sarah to give you a lesson or two. She learnt _ALL_ the moves for that musical. I've always _loved_ this one of her as a showgirl in ' _Gentlemen prefer Blondes'._ I honestly thought she'd become one of those shifty paid escorts after that, she was so good at it. Oh Sarah look! Do you remember how much fun we had doing ' _Cabaret'?_ And ' _Chicago'!_ You looked so good in that corset or maybe just a bit like Frank n' Furter. But still good."

Sarah looked over to Grace in attempts to receive some sympathy, but the traitor was currently playing an extremely competitive round of tonsil hockey with Fama, a man of few words and even fewer brain cells. _He would make an excellent goblin._ **Woah!** _Where had that thought come from?_ She had to escape.

"Oh God," she blurted quickly, "I really _have_ to pee." Sarah scooted across Jareth's lap faster than quicksilver and did not stop until she was safely locked within the neon lit, graffiti covered toilet cubical.

 _Oh God, what WAS I thinking. Ronnie had just been waiting for the chance to tear me apart and I handed it to her on a silver, glitter covered platter._

Staring blankly at a faded flyer for 5-pound chicken wings, Sarah considered her options. She could go join Cameron at the bar and get plastered or she could sit all by herself at the bar and get plastered. Both sounded like good options right about now. With a groan she pushed off the toilet and staggered out to face the mirrors, only to find Veronica already there, carefully slicking another layer of lipstick.

"You're such a spoil sport Sar," she said with a garnish smack of her lips. "I wouldn't have teased if I knew you two were serious."

Sarah paused, her hand grasping the organic, goats milk hand-wash.

"What?" she squeaked.

"With Jer," Ronnie said with an eye roll, dabbing a supposed minuscule imperfection in her make-up. "I mean come on hon. Make-up, jewellery, nice clothes. You're both obviously screwing. Besides everyone can see the ring," Sarah blanched, looking down at her costume ring and back at Ronnie, who had taken the ringed finger and was giving it a solid appraisal like she was trying to work out if she could get money on ebay for it.

"Ronnie, I- no," Sarah removed her hand from Ronnie's hand faster than a flaming chicken runs from a goblin. "Jaret-Ja-Jared and I are just old friends. We don't... um, sleep together. Oh God, no. It's a costume ring."

Ronnie's perfectly tweezed eyebrows rose as if to say, 'Sure, and pigs fly.' Which Sarah learnt they could in week two of working at the secret government agency. Not that Ronnie knew that.

"Whatever Sar," Veronica said silkily. "You can lie all you want. As long as I get to be one of your bridesmaids, I don't care."

And with that the mega-bitch of theatre flounced out of the bathroom. Sarah herself, was shocked. Walking out of the bathroom felt strange, like all the gravity had been sucked out of the room.

 _Me?_ With _Jareth? Psssh._ Sarah rolled her eyes towards the artistically lit ceiling. _And the sky is green._

A glance over at the bar told Sarah that getting smashed tonight wasn't an option as Ronnie was already there, bitching to Cameron, a fuchsia glass adorned with cherries and paper umbrella's teetered in hand. No doubt her wedding dress would be chosen by the end of the night, along with flower choices and the center pieces for the tables at the reception. Seeing as there was no other choice, Sarah slowly trudged her way back to the booth, head hanging low. Time to go back to her ' _future husband.'_

Little had changed at the booth. Grace and Fama were still pashing like there was no tomorrow and Jareth had the dignity to look politely bored over a bowl of chips. He immediately brightened however when he noticed Sarah skulking back to the booth.

"Sarah!" if Ronnie was a Chihuahua then Jareth was easily an over-excited Labrador puppy. A puppy that wanted something.

"Jared!" Sarah said back with as much enthusiasm as she could. It honestly wasn't a lot. "What do you want, you Spider from Mars reject?" she asked spitefully, grabbing a handful of chips.

"Hm... _well,_ since you're asking, a castle someplace in France would be nice," a frenzied look, Sarah rarely saw had come over Jareth, his false smile becoming slightly unhinged. "Or, perhaps, I don't know maybe... _Fucking Christ_ , they're coming this way... Um if you could just maybe for a moment forget that you foolishly wished your baby brother away to me and have a wild and passionate snog with me right now please?"

Sarah gagged on a chip. "I'm sorry you what-now?" she coughed incredulously, praying her mascara wouldn't run. Fortunately Grace and Fama were too caught up to pay either of them any attention.

"I _will_ make do with a friendly peck on the cheek," he said, grinning desperately, eyes darting over her shoulder.

"Jared, what's wrong?" Sarah frowned slightly, going to look around.

Jareth gripped her shoulders quickly. "No don't!" he hissed through his crazed grin. "They're heading right this way!"

"Who are?" asked Sarah.

"My ex."

She had to turn now. Sarah spotted her immediately. The only likely woman to be Jareth's ex. A voluptuous form crammed into a red dress that just screamed Hollywood golden era. Soft, beautiful, oh so perfect hair captured the little light available, making it glimmer as it cascaded down her back. Red painted lips that had been ripped from a make-up catalogue pouted slightly. She looked just like Jessica Rabbit. The woman floated, rather than walked to their table and it truly was like one of those movie moments where everything turns to sluggish, slow-motion and the soundtrack turns to a chorus of angels. Just before she reached the table however, the mystery woman turned and walked into the bathroom.

 _Huh,_ Sarah blinked stupidly. _That was probably for the best._ She didn't really want to face down Jareth's crazy ex. A cough broke her out of her reverie.

Feeling Jareth stiffen beside her, Sarah turned to meet Jareth's _real_ ex.

To quote David Bowie's young American's, " _Leather, leather everywhere._ "

Lazy eyes drooped out from under a scruffy, brown bob cut.

Jareth's ex had Mick Jagger's hips and Kylie Jenner's lips or vice versa.

Jareth's ex had a confident, relaxed posture that just screamed sex.

Jareth's ex smelt like an alluring combination of cigarette smoke and musk lollies. Jareth's ex had a 'more-wiry than she would have expected' body, but most surprisingly,

Jareth let out a sigh, "Hello Mitch."

Jareth's ex was a man.

* * *

 _A/N: Hello everyone. I'm back in action. Many, many thanks to my beta, Sazzle76 as usual. Please check out her amazing work which I can never spell properly._

Lovelyamberlight _: Goblin songs are very good. There's going to be at least one more that goes something along the lines of:_

 _Yo Girl,  
_ _Don't go tripping on shrooms.  
_ _We know you can go far.  
_ _Ballrooms, costumes, Ka-Booms.  
_ _That's how gangster you are._

 _It's still in the works really. I'm not to sure how well the third line fits in._

Honoria Granger: _Can't the Jewish Golem have precious things too? Maybe he has a really nice mud puddle somewhere that he wants to settle down with._

Bluebellwoods: _Jareth deserves everything he gets. He got a giant robot to swing an axe at my head! - Sarah's thoughts on the matter probably._

Both Guest reviewers: _Thank-you, Random strangers._

Glorified: _You demand, I deliver!_


	9. The dangers of too much sprite

_Disclaimer in haiku form:_

 _No. This is not mine,_

 _It belongs to Jim Henson._

 _Haiku's are hard. Leaf._

* * *

Sarah shifted uncomfortably on the faux leather booth whilst Mitch leaned over her to leer at Jareth like a shark, who was sitting on her other side. Jareth was sweating glitter profusely (a distressed yellow colour, Sarah had noticed, brushing a bit off her leg) and trying desperately to deflect all his ex's questions.

From the half an hour Mitch had spent loitering about, Sarah had learnt the following:

Mitch was in a band, whose music was described as Nirvana, meets the Rolling Stones, meets the Beatles, meets Electro K-Pop. Which just sounded to Sarah like he had just taken every big band from the past century and smashed them into one big title, then added the phrase ' _Electro K-Pop'_ to the end of it.

Mitch's band were being considered for Eurovision.

He clearly knew something about the Underground, as he had promptly asked a waiter (Sarah hadn't previously noticed but it was actually three brownies stacked on top of each other wearing a long coat) for _Sprite,_ with a conspiratorial wink. Not of course, the lemonade Sprite, but the elicit Underground beverage produced by sprites using the rather dangerous puckleweed water. Sarah presumed his knowledge was not dissimilar to the way a 12-year-old thinks they're an adult when they head off to high school.

The band was also so indie that it didn't even have a name. No name, just a symbol, that Mitch had designed. He was also a free-lance artist in his spare time.

Mitch's band were being considered for Eurovision.

Jareth and Mitch had met when his band had been doing gigs around Berlin.

Apparently Jareth had gotten up on stage, sung all of Bohemian Rhapsody in Italian and finished the whole thing by collapsing on top of Mitch.

Afterwards Jareth had informed Mitch that he had lovely brown hair, just like the only woman he'd ever loved and snogged him (still onstage) in front of a couple hundred people.

Mitch's band were being considered for Eurovision..

He said all this with such an ignorant arrogance, like, he wasn't trying to be a massive dick, he just was. Sarah hated him slightly more for it. From his low slung leather pants, revealing a pair of pristine Andrew Christian's, to the fact that he was probably wearing more make-up than herself, Sarah had already guessed what kind of relationship Jareth and Mitch had had, but it sort of annoyed her, like a slight, aggressive, prickly sensation running through her veins.

"So what do you do Sarah?" Mitch asked, smiling toothily.

Much against her will, Sarah felt nervous laughter bubbling in her throat. "Just some immigration work for the government. It's pretty boring really," she smiled weakly, grabbing a few of the tables paleo, organic, gluten free, dairy free, polenta chips. Sarah wasn't sure if they tasted like sand in her mouth because she was uncomfortable; or if they tasted like sand in her mouth because they were paleo, organic, gluten free, dairy free, polenta chips. But either way she was wishing she'd just told Ronnie she'd been sick.

Mitch smirked, sending Jareth one of _those_ looks. The extremely superior kind.

Sarah sighed through her nose, chewing mournfully on more of the tasteless chips. There it was again. He wasn't trying to be a dick. He just was.

Jareth on the other hand was trying to get as far away as possible from Mitch, more of the toxic yellow glitter flecking the faux leather of the booth.

Mitch gave the glitter an amused expression, before turning to Sarah.

"Isn't it crazy how this stuff seems to be _everywhere_ around Jareth?" he asked, although it was pretty obvious he thought he knew something Sarah didn't.

Sarah gave Mitch a winning smile. "Yeah, I'm forever vacuuming it out of the carpet. No idea where it comes from."

Mitch grinned like the shark from _Jaws_ must have done when it saw that skinny-dipping teen swimming towards it. Mitch widened his eyes in mock shock. "You mean you haven't told her Jareth!?"

Of course it was at that moment Ronnie decided to walk over. Or perhaps _stagger_ was the better word.

At her 18th birthday, Sarah had decided that she was officially old enough to get drunk and along with Hoggle and Sir Didymus (Ludo wasn't much of a drinker), she had opened a bottle of her father's whiskey and slowly consumed around half the bottle, over the course of two hours. Sarah didn't think anyone would ever be drunker than she had been before 10pm, but Ronnie was trying her best to prove her otherwise. Sarah felt herself grow more and more red as she noticed Ronnie dragging Jessica " _Not-actually-Jareth's-Ex-Girlfriend"_ Rabbit behind her. Most likely against the poor woman's will.

"Saaaaraaaaaaaaa-" Ronnie hiccoughed, blinking rapidly for a second before her eyes settled on Sarah again and she grinned. "Hun. Look, I juss wannaed you to meet this reporter. She saw- _,_ " Ronnie snorted, swaying gently on the spot, "that sounded like see-saw."

At least Mitch and Jessica Rabbit had the dignity to look embarrassed. Sarah was just going to flat out ignore Jareth, as she could practically sense the distain radiating off him.

"Ron?" Sarah patted her arm gently. "Maybe you should sit down."

"But she saw our show!" Ronnie screeched indignantly. "She hass _QUESSSTONSS_ to ax- _hic,_ ask."

Sarah slid as daintily as possible out of the booth. Jareth's yellow glitter spraying haphazardly, everywhere. Wrapping an arm around Ronnie to make sure she would stay standing up, Sarah nearly gagged. The smell hit her immediately like a truck full of vodka barreling along the A14.

"Ron," Sarah scolded reproachfully, "how much have you had to drink?"

Veronica snorted, her head flopping about on her neck like a weird, limp, orange fish. "I dunnooo, like eight maybe? You do the math."

Sarah frowned. "Yes I've done the math and the math says eight shots is too many, and you should sit down now."

Ronnie tottered unsteadily in her heels for a moment before tipping face first towards the booth.

"So!? Wha's your point! I-I **hate** maths," she said indignantly, sprawled on top of a disdainful Jareth.

"Okay Ronnie. That's fine. You can hate math," Sarah replied, rolling her off Jareth and propping her up carefully against the wall.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Mitch give Jareth a look that clearly said, " _Look at what you gave up."_

Gritting her teeth before plastering on her best _"stunning actress"_ smile and turning to Not-Jessica Rabbit.

"Can I help you?" Sarah asked politely, trying to ignore Ronnie drooling all over Jareth's shoulder. Not in the sense that she was trying to flirt with him, but literally drooling _all_ over the Goblin King's shoulder. "Do you need some questions answered?"

Not-Jessica Rabbit flipped her hair stunningly over one shoulder and Sarah caught an amazing waft of vanilla. _What shampoo was she using?_

The reporter seemingly plucked a notepad from nowhere and with a sly grin, pulled a pen from her bra.

"It's natures handbag," Not-Jessica smiled at a glowering Sarah.

 _Yeah,_ Sarah thought frowning, _some of us get a handbag from nature and others get a whole suitcase._

Quickly smoothing down her dress, and giving her pen an experimental click, the reporter started the usual spiel.

"Hi, I'm Carrey Bradshaw of 'Hey, that's showbiz!' magazine," she said, giving Sarah's hand a surprisingly brisk pump, "but being such a prestigious actress as yourself you probably knew that already," Carrey said with a sly wink. "Just in case you didn't know, we're after the _really juicy_ gossip, the full backstage pass to theatre life. Of course I just came in here tonight for a drink and I heard of your sweet, little friend there, that you, _THE Sarah William's,_ was here and I just couldn't waste the opportunity, the rare chance to find out the secrets that lie behind those glittering green eyes of yours. I want to know you down to your very last secret freckle and _oops_ ," Carrey appeared glamours-ly embarrassed, like an over excited talk show host who'd just 'accidently' revealed to much, slapping Sarah's arm playfully,. "I guess I'm just getting a little carried away but _wow,_ you're Sarah Williams."

Sarah grimaced. "I don't think I'm that famous. I'm not even a _D_ lister."

Carrey tapped her nose guilefully. "It's all about who you know Sarah, it's all about who you know. After all, look at your mother."

Ah yes, the stunningly beautiful and talented Linda Williams. Of course it came back to her. Except... Sarah wasn't sure but... _something_ just niggled with that comment. Something not quite right...

"So Sarah," Carrey leaned forward like they were about to share a secret, "what's the _luuurve_ life on set like?"

"Um..." Sarah chewed on a chip thoughtfully, "Non-existent I guess? You don't really have time to have a proper relationship, a job and be doing a play at the same time."

Carrey tittered, scratching something down on her notebook. "So what you're saying is that you just have a string of meaningless flings?"

She felt Jareth sit bolt upright in his seat, before leaning over to listen. Sarah blinked rapidly. "Um no... Not exactly..."

 _What the hell was up with these questions?_

Carrey nodded reassuringly. "Not exactly," she murmured, scratching out another few lines with her pen. "No, of course not. Don't worry one bit Sarah, I'm just trying to make the story a bit more interesting for the readers. Anyway, considering the budget of the pantomime those sets were _amazing_..."

Sarah settled back against the booth, more comfortable with the straight forward, less sappy questions.

Not long afterwards the three brownies stacked on top of each other came back with the tables over-priced, micro-brewery beers and Mitch's Sprite, which was bubbling lime green smoke dangerously. Sarah made a mental note to tell Bea about the goings on of the ' _innocent_ ,' hipster restaurant at the report after the troll drug raid tomorrow. She was just about halfway through explaining the various costumes they had onset when she was interrupted.

"And of course the costumes simply were to die for," Miss Bradshaw gushed, continuing her pen skittering rapidly across the notepad all the while. "What time period was the inspiration from again?"

It was that moment Ronnie wrapped her arms around Sarah's shoulders, shuddering deeply.

"Sssharah," Ronnie sniffed, almost petulantly, "Do you- _hic-_ love Jared more than _mmeee?_ "

Sarah patted Ronnie's hand consolingly, watching the wet patch of tears seep into her dry-clean only jacket. "Of course not Ronnie. You're my friend. You're also a bitch sometimes, but you're my friend."

Ronnie sobbed horribly. In the movies and stage productions, crying is always so beautiful and dramatic but in real life it tended to be a bit damp and snotty. Ronnie was also a very ugly crier. "I _knew_ it. _Hic._ You're leaving 'c-coz I'm such an awful cow. I _am_ a bitch." Ronnie stared at her wonkily, one false eyelash fluttering undone. "Don't lie t-t- _hic-_ to me Sarah-ah." She dissolved into wet sobs, followed by a loud, sloppy _hic._ "You _hate_ me. You're leaving me. You're marrying Jared and you're leaving ma-ma-meee _._ "

Feeling just a little bad for Ronnie, Sarah pulled her in for a close hug, rubbing her back soothingly like one would a gassy baby. Sighing gently, Ronnie pulled back and gave her a watery grin. "Do you use botox?"

Mitch spat out his Sprite.

"Um," Sarah choked for a minute, not really sure what to say. Ever since her incident with Mr. Smith, Sarah repressed a shudder downing some expensive artisan beer, she just simply... hadn't aged. Probably. Spiritually she felt more like in her thirties than her twenties, as clubbing had slowly gotten duller and duller and the overwhelming need to scull really gross alcohol had lessened significantly. "No. No I do not," Sarah smiled painfully. "Why would you say that Ron?"

Ronnie continued to smile serenely. "It's just, I've know you for like, _hic,_ forever, and like, you're nearly thirty now and you don't even have _hic,_ like a single wrinkle. I bet you _still_ even get carded." Ronnie grabbed at Sarah's face sluggishly. " _Hic,_ Just look- LOOK at you," she giggled quietly, squashing Sarah's face until she felt that she resembled a pug. "What a cutie, shmootie, patootie. So cute!"

Sarah sighed with resignation. _Why, oh, WHY did Ronnie always have to get so drunk? It was just embarrassing really._

Mitch cocked an eyebrow skeptically. " _You're_ nearly thirty?" he asked in a deadpan voice.

"I use a good moisturiser," Sarah said defensively, prying her face out of Ronnie's grip.

Carrey Bradshaw twittered. "It's okay for actresses to lie about their age Sarah."

Sarah had her story and she was sticking to it determinedly. "It's a _really_ good moisturiser."

Mitch took another sip of his Sprite through pursed lips. "Mmhmm, sure," his face lit up with a sudden grin. A grin of evil intent. "Say Jer, you wouldn't happen to be giving Sar a helping hand? Removing a few wrinkles? Bit of a _magic_ nip and tuck?"

Jareth curled a lip, tapping a finger lazily on his beer bottle. "No. I wouldn't do it for you and unless Sarah asked, I wouldn't do it for her either."

Carrey's eyes lit up deviously, adding a couple of hurried words to her notes.

 _Great, I can see the headlines already. "Sarah Williams and her amazing plastic surgeon husband!"_

Then **it** happened.

It was all so quick, Sarah didn't even register it was happening until it was all over. It's a well-known fact in the agency, that glitter is a tripping hazard. More of a sliding hazard really but still. You were probably less likely to slip if you were roller blading across ice, in skates that had been greased with goblin snot.

Sarah had neglected the dangerous amount of distressed yellow glitter that had amounted by their table. The three brownies in the trench coat had scuttled passed, slipped, and in a desperate attempt to remain vertical, had latched onto Carey Bradshaw's chair. Because it was a hipster chair, it had been made in the seventies and was probably far too rickety to pass a risk management assessment, let alone hold three brownies and the voluptuous Carrey Bradshaw.

Before anyone could so much as blink, there was over-priced artisan beer and glitter everywhere. The three brownies and Carrey were lying on the floor groaning. To make the matter worse, in the now silence of the restaurant, Ronnie started her high pitched, squeal of a laugh. The Brownie who had been acting as the torso lifted one spidery finger, dripping in beer. "YOU!" It screeched, pointing at Jareth, who raised a customary, disdainful eyebrow. "Your mother is a frickin' aardvark! You better butter up, buttercup because you're gonna be paying for the cleaning bills, the drinks and triple amount of health care!"

Sarah slid out of the booth, quickly checking Carrey's pulse before crouching beside the Brownies with a friendly smile. "Hey," she said in an amiable tone. "Listen, I don't think that's necessary is it? It was just a little accident and I think we can all just calm do-"

"Don't think you're getting out of this either chika," the Brownie who had been acting as the head snarled in a nasally voice, his tiny wood-like frame shaking angrily. "We heard everyone saying he is your husband."

The last Brownie stayed silent but nodded his head threateningly.

 _God I hate doing this,_ Sarah thought pulling out her wallet and letting her friendly smile drop. The Brownies eyed up the wallet greedily with shiny, black eyes.

She pulled out her agency identity card.

"Alright, listen up bitches," Sarah hissed, watching as the Brownies eyes widened in horror as they all registered what the card said. "Because I'm only going to say this once. I know all about the puckleweed water and I know, that you know, it's a highly dangerous, illicit substance both Above and Below ground. Now I can do one of two things here; either I book you all now and take this whole fucking business down, or I say that I maybe saw something to the agency and they do a review of this venue two to three months from now. Plenty of time to get rid of any evidence of the puckleweed... So, what do you say, huh?" she asked, pulling off her best Dirty Harry face.

One of the Brownies fell to his tiny, knobbly knees. "Oh please lady! You don't gotta do this!" he sobbed. "It's my anniversary! I'm a good guy, I swear, a real family man. Don't book us, please!"

Sarah gave him a skeptical look, which prompted more of the Brownie wallowing in the spilt artisan beer. "Throw me into the Bog of Eternal Stench but please, please don't book me. My children will be disgraced. It was just a little side job! I had to keep them in school somehow! Have mercy! I'll tell you everything, you just don't gotta do this."

The other two Brownies looked on with disgust. "I always knew you'd be the snitch Dave," said the nasally one, shaking his head stonily. "And after all me and my family have done for you. We broke our bread with you. Shared our wine... And this is how you repay us?"

Sarah stood up slowly, giving the Brownie that was sobbing at her feet a slight nudge. "Get out of my sight. Get rid of the Puckleweed and get a better way to make money," she sneered, tucking away her card.

The Brownies slowly trudged their way back to the kitchen, dragging their trench coat behind them. Sarah smiled with satisfaction before turning to the restaurant. They all watched her silently, in various states of shock. Of course by this time everyone had heard everything and seen everything. _Why couldn't this have just been a nice night out?_ Sarah sighed.

"Pass me my purse Jareth," she said calmly, holding out her hand.

Jareth handed it over, grinning in admiration. Sarah popped the clasp of her purse, reaching in and fishing around for a moment. There hidden amongst the keys, tampons, make-up and mobile phone was a small container that looked a bit like the ones Doctors get people to pee in, filled with a shiny, pale grey powder. Sarah pulled it out carefully and slowly unscrewed the child-proof lid.

"Hey everyone," she said clearly. "I'm so sorry for this little mishap but don't worry, I'm going to clean it all up now."

With that she flung the grey powder in the air, where it floated, suspended mid-air. Sarah took a deep breath, smoothing her hands down her shirt. "Activation code 7-0, Delta B. Agent Sarah Williams. Underground citizens' caught without glamour in public eye. Please correct. Activate."

The powder flashed a brilliant gold before slowly wafting down and the looks of surprise slowly faded away, leaving people blinking like they were slowly waking up. Eventually a general buzz came back to the room and the music started pumping again. Ronnie was leant up against the wall in a drunken stupor. _Thank-God._

Sarah cracked a grin of relief. Of course then, it had to be Mitch that ruined it all.

"I'm sorry, but WHAT?" he yelled, attracting a few eyes. "You can't just mess with people's minds like that! Surely it's illegal!" He turned to Jareth frantically. "Has she messed with your mind too? Is this why you love her? Oh lord, I've overdone it on the puckleweed."

Sarah really didn't know what got into her but she grabbed Mitch by his expensive, Italian shirt, yanking him forward. "You're going to want to shut-up pal, or I'm going to have to have a man with no mouth come along and dislocate your knee-caps," Sarah said, smiling sweetly.

On the floor, Carrey Bradshaw groaned, her eyebrows fluttering erratically.

Sarah stooped down to the ground, putting her game face back on. "Oh my God! Miss Bradshaw! Are you alright? That was a pretty bad fall!"

Sarah slowly helped the reporter sit up, fussing over her the whole time.

"What happened?" moaned Carrey, gingerly inspecting her beer and glitter covered dress before pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes.

Sarah looked at Jareth, mouthing the words " _What do I say?_ "

Jareth reached forward and took Miss Bradshaw's hand between his own, patting it lightly. "It was some crazy drunk," he said, with dignified anger towards the fake drunk. "They just ran straight passed and happened to knock you off your chair. You should talk to one of the staff."

Mitch's eyes bulged in disbelief, his mouth opening and shutting silently as he watched Carrey take it all in.

"Huh," she said quietly, rubbing her hand against her head. "I guess I should." She smiled gratefully at Jareth and Sarah, "Thanks! Did you want to carry on with the interview?" Carrey smiled, stunningly hopeful, gesturing to her beer soaked notepad.

Sarah smiled in a way that she hoped looked really regretful. "I'm sorry but it's been a pretty draining night and I've got work tomorrow. I think I'm going to head off now." She looked to Jareth, who nodded his confirmation, before adding with a customary sly, Goblin King grin, "Mitch here however, has a band that believes they're going to make Eurovision this year. Why not interview him?"

Mitch looked back and forth between Jareth and Carrey with betrayed fear, as Carrey clapped her hands delightedly.

"Sounds great!" squealed the reporter, grabbing her notepad hastily and sliding into the spot that Jareth had just vacated.

Jareth offered Sarah his arm, which she looped around her own.

"Let's go home, Jareth," she said offering him a happy grin.

Jareth raised an eyebrow. "You're not worried about Ronnie?"

Sarah's smile grew larger. "Nah. Cameron will pick her when the bar closes."

And so together, the ex-Goblin King and the Champion made their way out into the blistering cold, London sleet.

Jareth's looked up,"Fuck, we forgot an umbrella."

* * *

 _A/N: Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of updates but I've just been diagnosed with_ _chronic fatigue and in-between that and school, fan fiction went on the back burner for a while._

 _Anyway, as some readers pointed out previously, Jareth is in fact most likely bisexual in this fic and it upset some of you.  
This is really confusing as David Bowie was bisexual and Jareth was an extension of him in his glam rock period so obvs, he's not going to be straight.  
Sure I've written this so that he will eventually have a relationship with Sarah but every other fic has the evil ex girl friend and I just thought I'd shake it up.  
_

 _Some_ _wished to point out that I was wrong and David definitely wasn't bi so here is some proof he MAY have been:  
\- Romy Haag, a really amazing drag queen who stayed with David in a sexual sense during his Berlin period.  
\- Mick Jagger (Angie said they were defs sleeping with each other and just LOOK at the "dancing in the street" music video)  
\- The two men who inspired "John, I'm only dancing" and "Width of a Circle."  
_

For other's who are losing track of character's here is a list of the important ones:  
Bea - Sarah's boss at the agency, found in chapters 2, 3 & 7  
Ryan - Sarah's work partner, they're like Starsky and Hutch but with better hair, Ryan is in chapter 7.  
Chris - A fae princess and Jareth's ex room mate, chapter 1.  
Jan - The landlady, chapter 2  
Keith - Jan's boyfriend, only mentioned so far. 


	10. Jareth and Sarah buy drugs

Sarah groaned, shoving her head under her pillow as her alarm went off, trying to reach the elusive warmness. She'd had just enough artisan beer last night to realise that she'd had a little too much. And that bloody heater _still_ wasn't fixed. She was honestly going to need to have a chat with Janice about that.

 _Oh well, at least Ronnie won't bother me again until New Years._

" _Wake up your sleepy head,"_ crooned the young, pre-cocaine Bowie, or was it post-coke Bowie? She wasn't too sure. Sarah considered this as she rubbed at her eyes, trying to crack them open. It was too goddamn early to make assumptions on David Bowie's drug habits.

With goose-bumps prickling her skin lightly, Sarah rolled herself up a little more in her duvet, seeking that hard to find toastiness. Maybe she could sleep for five more minutes. Ryan wouldn't be that upset if she was late to the troll thing.

 _"Put on some clothes, shake up your bed."_

 _Rule one_ , Sarah told herself, dragging one stiff leg after another from under the safety of the duvet. _Never make one of your favourite songs your alarm for when you're waking up at the most ungodly hour of the day._ It was too early! Aside from the one day of hell with the hippy dryad, it had been extremely peaceful at work that week. One could almost say _too_ peaceful. Sarah grumbled as she dragged a brush through her bed hair. _Why couldn't all her weeks be too peaceful?_ The faint glow of her phone flicked from 5:29 to 5:30, which was important because everyone knew goblins got up at that time, to watch their early morning cartoons. It also meant-

" _I had a girl. Her name was Sarah._

 _Never met any chick fairer._

 _She had good eyes._

 _I'm sure they saw lots of things."_

Sarah listened carefully to the muffled squalling through the thin walls, choking back a snort. Admittedly, she should have called them off after her and Jareth's little make-up last night, but it had slipped her mind and surely one more day of Goblin singing wouldn't hurt. Sarah smirked to herself as she shimmied a pair of jeans over her pyjama bottoms. Pressing her ear against the plaster board, she was also quite certain she heard the beast awakening for the day.

"- _he gets us to steal. Her bras an' her jocks. Yes our old dear..."_

"Out you blasted buggers! Now! Before I bog the lot of you!" came the exasperated tones of the ex-Goblin King.

Sarah grinned at the scampering sound of fleeing goblins.

"Sorry Jer," she called through the off-white wall, "I'll call them off today, I swear."

All the muttered swears from the other side came to a stop.

"Really? And what would the notoriously famous night owl, Sarah Williams, be doing up at this time of the day?"

"I've got a case this morning," said Sarah, "Ryan and I are going after a drug-dealing troll."

"Fascinating!" Jareth did not sound at all fascinated.

Sarah rolled her eyes at the wall. "I'm sure it's better than whatever it is _you_ do," came her muffled response as she dragged a thick, navy jumper over her head.

Jareth's scathing comment in return was interrupted by the buzz of her phone. Sarah hurriedly shooed away a stray chicken that had started to nest there when her back was turned, and pressed it to her ear.

"Hey Ryan, listen... I'm up! You didn't even have to phone," Sarah laughed, mostly to herself. "In fact, I didn't even know you had a phone."

A very terse female, not-Ryan voice answered her.

"Hello Ms. Williams. This is Margaret speaking."

Sarah gnawed a lip. Who had gotten her number and why were they calling at this hour?

"I'm sorry. Who?"

"Margaret Jones. I'm the admin worker... for the agency?"

Sarah could have smacked herself in the face. "Yes, of course," Sarah gave a flustered laugh, running her fingers through her hair, an old nervous habit. "Of _course_ I know who you are Margaret," she said, followed by another nervous laugh. "You know what early mornings are like, huh? How can I help you?"

Sarah thought she heard a miffed sniff before Margaret started talking again. "We're sorry to inform you but your partner, Ryan Hudson, is still suffering from an allergic reaction," Margret's voice had the dead-inside drone of someone who has worked at an office desk for too long, and as such, it was pretty forgettable. "You'll be doing the mission without him this morning," she continued. "However, we do advise you to take someone else with you. The agency understands that although you can handle yourself, Trolls are known to prey on lone women."

Sarah pulled a face. "So, I can't take the other girl from my office? The one with the blue hair?"

Sarah heard another disapproving sniff from down the line. "Heather is on recon in Blackpool at the moment. Honestly, we've been stretched so thin this past month. We really don't have anyone else to spare."

Sarah chewed on her lower lip, "I dunno then..." There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, followed by a sharp burst of tapping on a clunky, agency keyboard. Suddenly, Margaret's voice returned.

"Listen," she said in hushed tones, "this would be completely off the books and usually I _so_ disapprove of his kind but..." There was another few seconds of keyboard tapping, followed by a deep breath. "You live with the previous Goblin King correct?"

"Yeah," Sarah breathed back. "Jareth and I share a flat."

Margaret's next words tumbled out of the phone in a rushed whisper. "As I said before... Totally off the books... but perhaps you take... _Jareth?_ " She said the name like it was some sort of exotic slug that had slithered off her tongue.

Sarah cocked her head. This was _very_ unlike an agency official. If anything went wrong then the phrase _'Up shit creek without a paddle'_ wouldn't even begin to describe how much trouble she could get in. "But, Margaret! I could get in serious trou-"

"That's why we keep it off the records Ms. Williams," Margaret replied smoothly, the sound of her rapid fire typing in the background. "Please be stationed at the troll bridge around 6:15 am. Your cover is that you were introduced to Pixie Dust at a mixed Fae/Human warehouse party, and you're now hooked. Good luck Ms. Williams."

Sarah went to protest but by then it was too late. The line was dead. Looking at the slightly bent, blue-grey nail jutting out her door, Sarah realised that she had a massive problem. And so she said what most would in such a situation, "Well, fuck!"

The chicken on her bed cocked its head at her in apparent agreement. Sarah was having a range of conflicting emotions right now. After her trip in the Labyrinth, she was certain that she could do anything and ultimately, the final confrontation between herself and Jareth showed her that she could do anything by herself. She'd taken that motto into her life. All her effort that had gone into schooling, she did by herself. Escaping from America and Mr. Smith, she'd done by herself. Getting as far as she had done in the agency, she'd done by herself.

Sarah sat down on her bed with a dull thump and gave the chicken a tentative stroke. Sure, she'd had help along the way. In the Labyrinth, her friends had helped her. During her high school years, her parents had always supported her decisions to the best of their abilities. And at work, Ryan and Bea helped her. But, asking Jareth for help was different. Because when she and her friends worked together they worked as a team. And when she and Ryan or Bea worked together, they worked as a team. But with Jareth it was different. They weren't a team. It was the mighty King Jareth and the tragic heroine, Sarah, bashing heads all the time. It was like a power play between someone who could potentially be her ally, but could also potentially throw a snake at her at any given moment.

Furthermore, Sarah definitely had feelings. And _God,_ _weren't feelings stupid?_

 _Like really, really stupid._

She wouldn't say she loved Jareth, because that would be really stupid. She DID NOT love Jareth. But had she never met the man before and saw him in a bar one night, Sarah would have sure as hell tried riding his dick to orgasm town.

And here lay the problem. There was way too much grey in their kind of relationship for Sarah to go riding that dick to orgasm town. Had she _loved_ him in that wonderful, selfless, innocent way people fall in love in Disney movies, there would be no problem with any of that, but she _didn't_ love him.

Jareth was just really good looking and Sarah was more than slightly afraid that the more time she spent bonding with Jareth, the more likely she was to forget that he had the real potential to be a fuckwit, and then she could make a really, really stupid mistake.

Another really, really stupid mistake though, would be facing the troll alone. Sarah tended to avoid being prejudiced towards any supernatural creature. She snorted, _Look at Ludo after all. Most people would bolt seeing a face like that._

Trolls however were different. Roughly 1 in 16 assaults made on mortals were committed by trolls. And although that didn't sound like a lot, it was when you put into perspective that there were approximately 1,742 different types of Undergrounders living in London.

"So ultimately for my own safety, I'll have to take Jareth with me. Which is bad,"

Sarah explained to the chicken, and it clucked in understanding. _Well_ , Sarah sighed to herself, _at least one of us understands._

Checking her phone (5:40) Sarah resolutely made her way to the kitchen. _The worst thing Jareth can say is, "No, I'm not going to help you." And if he does say that, it doesn't matter because I can just emotionally blackmail him to come._

In the kitchen, Jareth was hunched over the table, trying to drown himself in his cup of tea. He'd never been much of a morning person. Sarah suspected it was due to being part owl.

"Mrnahouphalm," said Jareth.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," Sarah replied, nursing the tea Jareth had made for her.

"You need to call off the Goblins, mmmkay?" slurred the ex-Goblin King. "How am I expected to be my usual perky self if I don't get enough sleep?" he said with a lethargic eye roll.

Sarah patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. "So it _is_ true that big nights out really drain the over-thirties."

Jareth gave her the evil eye, sipping his tea through tight lips.

"Okay Jareth," Sarah smirked, taking a sip of her own tea. "I'll call the goblins off, but only if you grant me a favour."

Jareth took another slow, suspicious sip of his tea. "What kind of favour?"

Sarah took a deep breath, _like ripping off a Band Aid,_ she thought, pulling on a loose thread in her jumper. "I've been given an assignment by my work and um, I have to go ask a troll for drugs, and um," Sarah noticed that her voice was getting higher and higher, just as Jareth's eyebrows were cynically raising higher and higher. "The agency said I should take you along because trolls are dangerous?" she ended with a squeak.

If possible, Jareth's eyebrows rose a fraction more. "And you're going dressed like that?"

Sarah wasn't sure how or when it happened, but suddenly she was leaving the apartment dressed like a down-town mob-boss' wife with half a pound of Jeffree Star cosmetics on her face, and Jareth's arm linked with hers.

The deep red, velvet, thigh high boots were pinching her toes. Sarah was pretty sure the only reason her ass cheeks weren't frozen was because the black mink fur coat only just covered them. The knit dress she was wearing was clingier than Jareth, and barely covered the decent parts. In other words, Sarah felt fabulous.

Sarah had no idea where Jareth had gotten these clothes from. Or the make-up for that matter. She didn't even want to know _why_ he had these clothes readily available. But she felt fierce. Even if her ankles hated the ankles hated the boots.

Obviously the clothes had been Jareth's idea.

 _"A troll, no matter how thick in the head, would get pretty suspicious if an average girl had walked up and asked for fae drugs," he had explained, as he carefully applied lipstick to Sarah's face (Obviously, he'd colour coordinated it to go with her boots). "However, if say, a couple who had just left a mixed-species, illegal, Underground party came and asked for drugs, no questions would be asked."_

The clouds moved like sluggish, fat, black sheep across the grim sky. Like they too really hated moving quickly in the bitter cold. For once the streets of London were nearly empty apart from the occasional early morning jogger, who completely ignored Sarah and Jareth. Loutishly swaggering in a pair of brown ankle boots, skin tight black jeans and a three-quarter length red leather jacket that hid the blinding white of his shirt, it truly was as if the Goblin King inside Jareth had never left. The look was finished off with a dusting of orange eyeshadow and a cane which he periodically tapped against the icy footpath. Jareth looked as if he'd wandered out of Paris fashion week. Like most of the Paris fashion week models, he was kind of alluring, in a freaky looking, alien sort of way.

"So," Sarah fingered the collar of her coat, "how do people act at these fae parties?"

Jareth had a moment of thoughtful silence. "The usual way I think. Lots of alcohol and music and drugs and sex."

Sarah nodded, "Makes sense I guess. You been to many?"

Jareth shrugged, tapping his swagger stick against the ground. "More than a few."

They walked through the cold in companionable silence for a bit. Then a question struck Sarah. "Why is your human name Jared Williams? You could have had literally any other last name but it had to be mine, didn't it?"

Jareth inspected some grit that had accumulated on his shoe. "Not really. The High Court said I had to take some aspect of your name to remind myself that I was a failure and I figured it would seem strange to most mortals for a grown man to go wandering around saying his name was Sarah."

Sarah sighed, "In a twisted fae logic kind of way, that makes a surprising amount of sense."

Jareth hummed in agreement.

Sarah wrapped the mink coat a little closer. "So how are we going to play this drug bust?" she asked, keeping her eyes firmly ahead.

Jareth clicked his teeth together, "It's common enough for fae to drug humans they find attractive."

"You're telling me," Sarah muttered under her breath.

Jareth gave her a sharp look but didn't comment. "As I was saying, some fae drug humans they find attractive, to keep the humans dependent on them. I think it would be... _smart_ if we insinuated that we have a similar relationship going on."

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah thought she may have seen the flash of a camera. But when she looked around to check, she only saw more semi-empty streets with a couple of early morning commuters drudging along.

She nodded affirmatively, "Sounds good."

Ducking down a less than respectable alleyway, the pair picked up speed, Sarah struggling slightly in her heels. Then down some treacherously slippery stairs, along the river bank, past the one-eyed homeless man in the orange parker, then under a bridge that needed fixing up in the 80s. Sarah found her target:

Troll.

Male.

Aged 83.

Known by the name 'Slug'.

Believed to be committing petty crimes as well as dealing the drugs; Pixie Powder, Fairy Dust and Sprite. Mostly stayed under the bridge during the day, as sun turned Trolls into stone.

Unconsciously, Sarah huddled closer to Jareth. Like most trolls, Slug was over 6 ft. tall, easily. He had a thick, grey-blue hide speckled with a number of festering scabs. Sarah suspected that Slug was struggling to pull off a strong enough glamour to fool anyone other than the casual passer by, which was probably why his black hoodie was pulled low over his enormous head. But Sarah could still see his yellow eyes darting about sharply.

Slug was one scary dude.

Jareth approached confidently, pulling Sarah along behind him. Swallowing her fear, Sarah put on her slightly dazed and confused party girl face.

"Hey mate," said Jareth, wrapping his arm around Sarah.

Slug gave a slight nod. "You lookin' for som'thin mate?" his voice sounded thick and hoarse, almost Greek, maybe.

"Depends," Jareth skimmed his thumb slowly around and around Sarah's navel, "you selling anything?"

The troll grinned and Sarah caught the glint of sharp teeth and the smell of rotting fish and river water. Sarah felt her heart beating in her throat so hard that she was surprised she wasn't seeing spots.

"Who's askin'?" said the troll slowly, yellow eyes shinning at the prospect of money.

"Party goers," Jareth replied casually.

Sarah's fight or flight system kicked in and she giggled stupidly, lolling her head back against Jareth's shoulder. "That was a good party baby."

Jareth smirked, giving her hip a squeeze.

Slug's eyes narrowed slightly, "Oberon's woz it?"

Sarah's breath hitched, lungs burning from how hard she'd been holding it in.

Jareth snorted, "Nah mate. Listen can you give us anything or not?" Jareth leaned in, lowering his voice considerably as Sarah felt his eyes rake over her.

"I'm kind of in a rush to get home, if you know what I mean."

Despite herself, Sarah blushed behind the makeup.

The troll gave an understanding nod. "Yea, alrigh'. Got some Pixie Powder. Well good, ain't it?"

"How much?" asked Jareth, cocking his head.

"Sixty quid," replied Slug in a way that clearly said, 'ask me to lower the price and I'll smash your pretty boy face in!'

Jareth let out a low whistle, "That much!"

The troll shrugged, hands thrust deep in his pockets. "You shoulda come earlier in the night if you wantit som'thin cheaper, shouldn't ya?"

Jareth was silent for a moment, gently stroking Sarah's hair, clearly deep in thought. "How pure?"

Sarah felt her heart racing faster and faster. Like a bird fluttering to get out of a cage. At least Ryan wasn't here. He probably would have fudged up by now.

Slug gave a wide grin, displaying rows of reptilian teeth. "Very."

Jareth nodded, and Sarah pulled a wad of cash from her pocket (agency money).

Jareth shot her a grin, "Thank-you Sarah."

Slug's beady eyes flitted between the pair. "Sarah?" he said slowly, staring intently before turning to Jareth. "An' yous the old Goblin King, ain't you then?"

Sarah took a cautious step back. Then another. Pulling Jareth back with her. Then another. Heels clicking slowly. Cautiously.

"Jareth," Sarah warned in a low voice, "I think we should go now," she said, pulling on Jareth's arm, giving the Troll a nervous smile. "Let's not waste anymore of the nice troll's time, huh?"

Slug's eyes slid slowly between the pair again. "I can't believe it!" he exclaimed, mostly to himself. His pointed, yellow finger nails scratching the back of his head. "They said yous looked like a pair of librarians," he muttered accusingly, then, shrugging. "Well, nothing else for it I guess. You're important to the boss."

Sarah never could quite remember what happened next. She got lost somewhere between the Troll lunging at her and Jareth grabbing her hand and yelling, "Run!"

Her legs pumped. Feet screaming at her. Each misstep of her heel making her heart pirouette. Each misstep potentially being her last.

Suddenly Jareth stopped, his hand slick in her own. "I think we're far away enough now," he panted. "He'll stay under the bridge if he doesn't want to get turned into stone."

Behind them, heavy, thudding footfalls got closer and closer. Sarah looked up at the sky and then looked at Jareth.

"Jareth," she said taking a gulping breath, "it's overcast."

Jareth's eyes darted behind them before he grabbed her hand again. "Keep running!"

Neither of them stopped until they reached the comfortingly crowded Bacon Street, only a block away from their flat in Brick Lane.

Unsurprisingly, Sarah could smell bacon. Her stomach growled. She looked over at Jareth, who was semi keeled over on the pavement, still clutching her hand despite the troll being long gone.

"Do you wanna grab some breakfast?" she asked.

Jareth peeked up at her from under his poof of hair, which had slipped out of it's ponytail as they ran. "Breakfast would be nice."

Hand in hand, they semi-hobbled, semi-staggered towards an open restaurant.

It was called "Cereal Killer Cafe."

* * *

 _A/N: I'm back!_

 _As usual many thanks_ _to Sazzle who has not only been beta-ering for the masses but also doing a super crazy amazing job a writing her own fanfic and furthermore many thanks to_ _Sazzle76_ _,_ _GrowingThroughTheCracks_ _, K_ _Bates_ _,_ _Anneige_ _,_ _MyraValhallah_ _and the guests for their support in my 'truly ground breaking' decision to make Jareth bi and just the general little tidbits on Bowie's life.  
_ _( KBates, Iman is amazingly gorgeous and a real sweetie)  
Personally, I don't think it should be in anyway confronting to know LGBT people exist and I'm under the impression that if you lived for a billion years or so, your sexuality would be a lot more fluid. Like, at some point you're going to look at a member of your own sex and go "yeah... I'd tap that."  
_ **  
Mad Shelly** _: I in no way intended to be political with Sarah being uncomfortable. Mitch is just an uncomfortable guy. I can't have Sarah magically getting along with EVERYONE because that would be boring.  
_ _ **  
Anneige**_ _: Oh my goodness I was in no way thinking about showers when I wrote that. But haha how funny would that be? I think that Mitch was asking if Sarah knew about Jareth being fae and as a fae he would probably be allowed to make a partner of his choice immortal? Mitch being extremely egotistical would want to stay young forever but Jareth would probably say nah. Also you're totally right on sexuality all the brownie points for you._


	11. I'm incredibly sorry

**A/N:** _Hi y'all, hope everything in life is going super well for you.  
Unfortunately I have some sad news for all my fics. I'm just finishing off my final year of high school now and as this account was made with my school email address that's being shut down next week, I will not conceivably be able to finish this off.  
I'm incredibly sorry for this but it's been a real hoot. Underneath I've left my notes for how I planed the rest of the story to go mostly because I severely hate things being left unfinished and if anyone wants to know how the rest of the story would have gone, here you go my friend.  
I'd really love to thank Sazzle76. She is an amazing babe and beta if you are looking for one and she made this mess of a fic more of a hot mess.  
To anyone else who is young and dumb like me, or even middle aged and up for a good time, I really encourage you to go out and have a good time with life. Although I love the laby fandom, it can be a lonely, conservative kind of place and you still need to connect with the outside world.  
Anyway, without further ado, here is the rest of Apartment 667. _

Chapter 16 / 9?

-Christmas comes around and Sarah invites everyone to come see the pantomime she is currently in 'Cinderella.' Everything goes well and she meets everyone after the show. (Ryan shows up briefly as well as Jan, who is there with her uncontrollable niece and nephew) Jareth arrives with a large bouquet from himself and a small munch of weeds and window box flowers from the goblins.

-[A reporter approaches her under the guise that she is doing a piece on the play and asks a couple questions] before she is whisked off by the cast + J, to the infamous curry place as it is a mystical theatre tradition to go there after a show.

-Here we learn that J was given the last name 'Williams' as reminder of his failures.

-[While walking home, some youths call out some comments that could be taken as gay insults about J.] To stop him saying anything stupid, S grabs his hand and tell him to keep walking.

-We end the night with J wishing Sarah a Merry Christmas eve (Happy and Fluffy).

{This is all the build up to the magazine with people taking pictures of them being out and about together and the interview from the show will have it's words twisted to make it sound like Sarah's talking about Jareth and how happy she is with him. By this point J's parents will come bursting through the door and for a family Christmas dinner (Of left overs and grilled cheese sandwiches) but really they are there to sus out the girl from 'fae fortnightly' magazine}

\- It is Christmas day. Sarah and Jareth are sitting on the couch watching those kind of cheesy Christmas re-runs. The atmosphere is generally kind of sluggish but the pair are more comfortable together in general.

\- S contemplates how she doesn't have a family to celebrate with except maybe an adult Tobey who doesn't know she exists and Jareth's family have very much estranged him (aside from Antonio).

Jareth offers to order in Chinese.

A few minutes later they hear a knock at the door. Going to answer it expecting Chinese, it turns out to be a woman who looks like Julie Andrews and a man who looks like Robert Di Niro. They are both are REALLY over the top in their friendliness and affection.\, hugging her and bringing in Christmas presents in bright, candy like colours and insisting to be called "Mom" and "Pop" (Running Joke that the reader never finds out their names) and they've bought dessert which Mom slaved over in the the kitchen all morning or at least her slaves did (It's Peach cobbler).

Jareth is mildly in shock as the had previously completely estranged him and haven't bothered speaking with him in over 30 start talking about how happy they are for him and Sarah, wondering when the marriage is, when Jareth is going to return to the Undergound, how pregnant is she etc. etc

Jareth bursts out that he has not proposed to to Sarah and she hasn't so much as given him a peck on the cheek. The parents jovially respond by asking if he has tried drugging Sarah, to which he replies yes, but it didn't work.

Sarah asks why they would even think she and Jareth were together and the wife pulls out a glossy magazine with a title that says some thing like "Ex-Goblin King's wish come true." (I dunno, if you think of something better let me know yeah?) and it's got an extreme close up of the pair sitting together from their time at Ronnie's.

While Jareth argues with his parents, Sarah reads the story that details an extremely scandalous love life (I'm most definately going to need help with that).

The Chinese arrives and they group have an awkward dinner ("Mom" shows a family picture from the early 50's at Disney land of literally the perfect American family with the happy mom and the business dad and a perfect blonde haired blued eyed daughter (Antonio's mother) except it's ruined Jareth sulking in one corner like a full on greaser).

*SIDE NOTE/IDEA I HAD AND WANT TO REMEMBER "If you get me pregnant, will I lay an egg?" - Sarah after Jareth's mother describes giving birth to Jareth.

The chapter ends with the pair washing up after J's parents have left and Sarah admitting that she was the black-sheep of her family too.

\- Sarah is cleaning about the house the next day listening to her tunes and contemplating life and how lucky she is that she gets to be young while David Bowie was popular AND still be young when Beyonce is popular, when she hears someone slam through the front door.

It's Jareth and his face is hella shanked up. He has also forgotten the groceries.

After asking what happened, Jareth explains that some young guys bet him up for being a fairy.

Sarah says that is not possible, no-one knows about fairies, he probably got beaten up for wearing too much lipstick.

To be on the safe side, she phones up work and Mindy/Mandy/Miranda tells her not to worry, they've had problems with the group before, they just hate queers. [But do they REALLY?! _Hell no!_ This is foreshadowing)

Sarah helps Jareth clean up his shanked up face and there is cuteness.

I will have to pad out this chapter. Sarah's probably going to get on of her first death threats from an extreme fan of Jareth's who thinks that she is ruining his life.

Discussing how hard the transition to Aboveground was. Thinking Shampoo was some animals literal poo and not knowing who the Beatles were. (General fluffiness to lure the readers into a false sense of calm)

New years rolls around and the office are going out for drinks. While Sarah is getting ready in the hall, Jareth approaches in his usual flirty way and there is a definite chemistry, at least until Sarah reveals she is going out for drinks and yes Ryan will be there. (The whole gay Winnie the pooh thing) (" _Jareth, Ryan is like my sidekick. We're like Startsky and Hutch, Sherlock and Watson, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet."_ J expresses a firm belief that all those characters are gay for one another) Jareth is most definitely jealous.

Sarah leaves thinking nothing more of it and has a good time until a woman bumps into Ryan and spills his drink.

Sarah thinks nothing more of the incident except the woman is incredibly annoying and obviously fae. She is very well made up and has cheek bones sharp enough to stab someone with.

The woman exits the mens bathroom and Sarah realises something is up. Sarah corners the woman under the intention of susing her out.

In a turn of events the woman is Jareth cross dressing. He has excellent conturing skills and would like to point out that it is a free country and he can wear women's clothes if he wants to. Yes, they are his own and not Sarah's.

Sarah angrily storms home with him, saying that she can't believe his behaviour. And she drags him back home before more trouble can occur.

They are stopped in the stair case by the crazy woman from Sarah's dream who pulls them inside to watch TV. They are shown a series of clips ending with two children running through a peach orchard. There is a blonde girl being chased by a little dark hair boy who is crying because he is not as fast. Sarah appears out of the trees like a guardian, dressed in clothes that have a real thunder dome/madonna vibe, generally being a boss ass mum and tells the little boy how he will one day be strong like his father. Jareth follows soon after, being generally affectionate which TV Sarah totally reciprocates, much to present day Sarah's disgust and annoyance.

The clip ends and the old lady tells them to leave.

Back in the apartment, Jareth has a new edge from seeing the future and tries making moves on Sarah, despite the fact she is still very upset with him.

After Sarah turns him down a few more times, Jareth explains that it's fine and that it doesn't matter how many times she turns him down now, they're clearly still going to be together sometime in the future. (This is said in an extremely condescending way not at all a sweet I'll wait for love but rather, you'll come crawling back to me type thing)

Sarah replies that she and Ryan will get married (which is her mind is inconceivable) before she even considers necking about Jareth.

Chapter ends with her sobbing angrily (ANGRY TEARS! The tears of a strong Amazonian warrior who could slice your face off) to a goblin who is eating her socks. In the background she can hear illegal fireworks signalling the new year.

Sarah is working like crazy to take her mind off Jareth who is getting worse and worse to the point where his parents are sending baby clothes. Fortunately today he is away at work, where ever he works that is.

I'm at least 90% certain she would have taken on a night shift when all the vampires work. But they're not beautiful vampires, they're just semi-pudgy, really pale guys who never seem to leave the house.

She is struggling with going on Undercover missions as literally impossible everyone recognises her from the magazine, leading to people either slamming the door in her face or trying to wring her neck.

Bea calls her in to let her know that they are letting her lay low for a bit as she is the victim in this.

Bea also tells her that they have more information on Bert, Vera and the Drug Troll who are all hired by the same guy, a Baron from the Underground who is after the doomsday amulet.

That receptionist lady Mindy carries in the files on the guy. The Baron has a weak chin hidden behind a pointy goatee but looks like he could easily slam a guy to the ground without making a sweat. All other files on him have been lost. Bea says they'll keep looking.

Sarah tries going out to check on two fae she had helped move in but when the mother sees Sarah near her child she screams and forces her to stay away from them. (Because the GK has a bad rap and stuff)

Sarah goes home and cries again (She says that she just doesn't understand why she's so emotional and maybe it's just getting towards that time of the month) in room only to have her old friends from the Labyrinth stumble out of the bathroom.

While having morning tea they explain that they couldn't reach her on that day all those years ago as there was a spell blocking them. They'd presumed it was Jareth but it remained even after he was banished so maybe not.

Chapter ends with the group playing scrabble while Sarah sits on Ludo.

Sarah come home from work with groceries and is more than annoyed when she is greeted by a woman's butt on her coach, it is a clothed butt but barely a clothed butt.

Said clothed butt is attached to Crystal (She's back!) who is attached to one Goblin King. Via the mouth.

Jareth acts coldly surprised to see Sarah home so early and goes back to being generally flirtatious/ handsy with Chris but it's pretty clear he's doing it to see Sarah's reaction (Maybe make her jealous)(Defs to make her jealous Sarah just doesn't know this).

After a brief interlude of anger talking with Jareth saying something like, "It's fine. We were never going to be anything anyway." Sarah just decides enough is enough and up and leaves.

Despite the time, she is heading to work knowing the night staff like the vampires and stuff will be there (Like serious workaholic) when a large, prickly sack lands over her head, and the last thought she gets is before she is knocked out is that is reminds her of a grandmother's sweater.

Sarah wakes up in an empty office space, tied to a chair covered in wires, spiky things and blinking lights.

She is met by an extremely nervous man (Michael, Jack's son) who is very anxious about the fact that he has just kidnapped her.

Sarah wonders how this guy dragged her body through London without getting noticed.

The guy sets up a video camera that is apparently broad casting to FAE TV and does a truly stunning Bond villain act, holding a knife to Sarah's throat and threatening and goading the ex-Goblin King to come and save her. Once the camera shuts off he has an emotional break down.

Through some coaxing, Sarah gets him to admit that he's doing this because back home in the Underground, he was an actor but his wife, Donna the mad (Mad Donna, Madonna, Michael, Jack's son, Michael Jackson) hated him because of it, saying that he acted because he would never be as great as the Goblin King. Michael, Jack's son figured that if he could defeat the Goblin King then maybe Mad Donna would love him. He was given this idea by the Baron, who has placed a reward on both Sarah and Jareth's heads, if someone can get both of them to the Underground.

After Michael admits that even the 'torture chair' she's sitting in is just some old prop from a sci-fi film he was an extra he was in, he and Sarah have a Dn'M, discussing life, their favourite plays and musicals and the current goings on off the underground.

Michael is just about to change his ways and let Sarah go, when Jareth bursts in and completely rips the man to shreds before letting the goblins to turn him into a goblin.

Lifting Sarah out of the 'torture chair' bridal style Jareth expects to be rewarded with kisses, damsel in distress swooning and love but she fights him tooth and nail, screaming that he's a horrible person.

He manages to keep hold of Sarah for a bit before she squirms and breaks loose.

Eventually Jareth has had enough, pushing her face first against a wall and asking her how she could be so stupid.

Sarah does not see a way of getting out of this and so uses her 'feminine attributes' against him. (According to her she "strategically grinds" against him).

Initially Jareth is extremely confused but very much reciprocates with Sarah's encouragements, eventually flipping her around to kiss him.

Sarah uses the opportunity to knee him the crystals and run for it, briefly hearing behind her "It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair."

Jareth arrives home fifteen minutes and Sarah has invited literally everyone from the labyrinth over as a way of protecting herself (Her thought process is that he won't do anything with everyone there).

She is incredibly wrong as he simply calls Antonio, who hadn't realised his subjects were even gone. (Antonio will mention the M.C Escher room but he'll call it the M.C Usher room because be real, he would. He also precedes to mention that he filled all the surfaces of the room with trampolines because why not?)

Antonio whisks everyone away and then tells Jareth to use the vial. Fortunately he doesn't at this stage.

Jareth corners Sarah and demands to know everything.

Sarah explains that it was a Wednesday, and she was going to have her friends over, only they didn't come. It had been a few hours and her parents hadn't come home either with Toby. There was a knock at the door and young 18 year old Sarah answers the door to find some government men in suits.  
They told her that the Goblin King was furious with her and that this was his revenge. She was told he had waited until she was 18 and now he demanded that she come back to the Underground or her friends will be destroyed and her parents would be turned into goblins. As the finishing touch, he will take Toby and make him the new prince and force him to hate her.  
Sarah being extremely emotionally distraught about this does not question it when they claim that they will help her and is willingly led into a pretty fancy, black car.  
It turns out to be an incredibly bad mistake as the agency had grabbed her purely for her powers and frequently tortured her when she could not deliver on all her wishes  
.

Back in the present Jareth looks very guilty/sus and claims he doesn't know what powers.

Sarah wishes for a bunch of things only to have them miraculously appear and explains that the agency wished to use these powers to get nuclear weapons to potentially use against Russia in the cold war (My internet sources say it ended about 1988 so we'll go with it yeah?).

Jareth apologises and the rest of the night is spend in awkward tension.

Sarah wakes up the next morning and all is surprisingly okay.

While Jareth is making tea, she goes and checks the mail, happening to find yet another death note from a die-hard Jareth fan.

Sarah reads it out loud while drinking her tea only to find that Jareth has put the mysterious amber liquid glass vial stuff in there that Antonio gave him ages ago.

It's kind of like the peach drug and Sarah stumbles about dizzily for a few moments before collapsing to the couch.

The last thing she sees is Jareth, stroking her hair and sculling the remainder of the glass vial.

There is a trippy dream sequence in which Sarah eventually finds Jareth.

She doesn't recognise him at all yet feels the need to be close with him and he is entirely over the moon about this fact.

After some dancing and kissing Sarah does recognise him (while pretending that she still doesn't) but knows he won't just let her leave (There is zero furniture) and so she proposes they play a game of hide and seek (In a sexy way ie. chase me, find me and we'll have fun the adult way).

Jareth jumps at the chance at playing sexy hide and seek with Sarah, but Sarah merely uses the chance to run away and escape the dream.

Sarah wakes up on the couch very tangled up with Jareth, who is still blissfully asleep.

Sarah decides that this is too much. Jareth has disrespected and drugged her in an attempt to reach his own means and so she writes a letter letting him know that she is moving out.

She hands her key in with Jan and takes some of the still packed boxes from her room and takes a taxi to Bea's.

The chapter ends with Bea opening the door to her apartment and letting Sarah in.

A week later she gets a text from Jareth asking her to come back as he has something to say to her.

Although she is unsure about going, Jan does let Sarah know that Jareth was extremely distressed when he woke up and found Sarah was missing and has mostly been moping around the flat in his pyjama's the past week.

After passing an elderly man she doesn't recognise of the staircase, she meets Jareth and he apologises like crazy, before saying a whole bunch of weird things about the doomsday amulet and staying away from magical portals.

They hear the front door open and Jareth kiss/ face smooshes her before apologising again and shoving Sarah into the broom closet with David Bowie's poster.

The elderly man walks through the door and takes off his glamour only to reveal that it's (Dun, dun, DUN) The Baron! + maybe Bert and Vera, not really sure yet.

Sarah hears all this inside the broom closet which Jareth has sound proofed so she won't yell out and give herself away.

While in the closet Sarah listens to the pair as she hears what she presumes is a bunch of henchmen trashing the house looking for her while The Baron asks where she is.

Jareth lies and says that she left through the fire escape after she found out that Jareth didn't love her and was only using her for is own pleasure.

The Baron says he's a terrible liar and they all know Jareth never had the guts to take what he wanted. He follows this up with, in any case the leader's plan (Woah holy christ The Baron isn't the big guy?) will still work if they only kidnap Jareth at this stage because Sarah is such a tortured soul that she will go and rescue Jareth the moment she finds out he's been taken anyway.

Jareth is taken kicking and screaming to the bathroom to the mirror portal (Oh my gosh all the foreshadowing was there [The mirror is all blackened and the room smelt because someone was trying to get through / Jareth always seeming really Labyrinth-y when he comes out of the bathroom / Sarah's friends using it as a portal)  
.

The moment Jareth is through the portal, Sarah can get out of the closet (which was magically locked or something) only to come face to face with (dun dun DUN) The puppet men! They are basically like the freakiest muppets you have ever seen in your life but with white soulless eyes that see nothing and yet everything.

Sarah manages to trick one into falling out of a window before rushing down to Jan's.

Bea arrives minutes later to check and make sure Jareth hasn't done anything freaky with Sarah.

Chapter ends with Sarah promising to get Jareth.

Start of Chapter and Sarah is having a 'nice chat' with a dwarf named Grumpy (Mindy/Mandy found him and claims he might know stuff) in a coffee shop. Grumpy is a code name he uses. Ryan is present.

We find that Sarah is trying to gather more information on the Baron so that she will have an advantage when she finally goes through the mirror.

Grumpy is pretty reluctant to give information or weapons and so Sarah plays off the following kind of sequence:  
 _"Listen Grumpy. I like you. You seem like a nice guy. The kind of guy where, if you were to mysteriously disappear then someone, like your wife and kids, would miss you. Because of this I am going to let you in of a little secret."_ she will point at Ryan, the nervous awkward Ryan. _"See that guy? You know who I work for of course but you see that guy? He's what we call experiment X. Technically I shouldn't have even let him out of the labs. He's all cute and fragile looking now but this guy makes the hulk look like a kitten."_

Reluctantly grumpy gives them the information they need and Sarah a weapon. It's a walking stick. A magical walking stick, but still and walking stick.

Sarah goes back to the original apartment (667) completely ready for battle dressed in the clothes similar to what she saw from the future prophesy (Thunderdome/ Madonna) in a hopes to blend in.

While getting ready to go through, Bea lets her know that the moment she has Jareth, she needs to get back to the original location she landed so Bea and Jan can pull her and Jareth back through.

Sarah goes through the mirror and ends up in a church like structure.

After some sneaking around and dodging some puppet men, she manages to follow some to the dungeon where she spots Jareth (I wanted this to be like the reverse of other Laby fics, you know where Sarah's kidnapped and Jareth saves her because he's such a macho manly guy who wears make-up and heels).

Sarah reveals herself to Jareth but grows alarmed when he starts yelling, afraid he'll attract attention to them.

It doesn't attract any attention other than someone yelling for him to shut up.

This is because Jareth has iron poisoning and frequently hallucinates Sarah coming to visit him, as he demonstrates when he says that she looks different from usual, as she's often the innocent little 15 year old in the poofy white thing. He then asks if she has any board games they could play or if she would mind doing a strip tease as he is very bored.

Eventually Sarah learns from Jareth that either Vera or Bert have a key that can unlock him but he very much doubts she'll be able to get it as he is a figment of his imagination and can't pick things up, even if she is a very pretty figment.

While looking for the key, Sarah is caught by Vera.

Much to Sarah's surprise, she manages to beat Vera with her magical walking stick and shove her in a closet.

Sarah manages to find her way back to Jareth's cell but Bert got there first and is questioning Jareth which seems to be a normal thing for the pair.

Jareth accidentally lets on that he's seen Sarah and he could have sworn that she was real this time because he felt her touch his face but perhaps it's just another of their sick tricks.

Bert connects the dots between the missing Vera and the fact they have been expecting Sarah for quite some time.

Sarah is caught and led to the Chapel area she started out in with the frantic Jareth not far behind.

Both are forced onto the altar, where the Baron (I really need to thing up a last name for this guy) appears and starts a whole ceremony with the doomsday amulet to open a wider barrier between worlds, so that the Baron will be able to manipulate the mortal world more easily or something. (I'll look through my notebook. I had the whole evil plan somewhere)(Later note, found evil plan, the Fae are overpopulating the Underground so the Baron is going to take over the entire Above, Kill 3/4 of humanity, enslave the rest and basically bulldoze earth).

Part of which requires the blood of fae royalty and the blood of the mortal maiden they love to be smeared on the alter.

It looks like everything is going to plan and doomsday is coming but suddenly it all fails and The Baron and Bert legit have no idea why.

It's because maiden in ye olden days means virgin and neither Sarah or Jareth are virgins. Sarah would like to point out that it is the 21st century and she's been 21 and out of captivity for at least 10 years. Sometimes an itch has gotta get scratched y'know? Jareth is accepting of this as fae lead severely hedonistic lifestyles.

The whole spell thing backfires and Bea pulls Jareth and Sarah out of there as the chapel burns to the ground killing Bert but letting the Baron escape  
.

The first thing Sarah and Jareth do when they get back is smash the bathroom mirror.

Final scenes are of J and S bonding while getting stitched up in hospital.

RANDOM NOTES I HAVE WRITTEN AND WILL PUT INTO THE STORY SOME PLACE:

The bad guy of the fic uses the phrase "De-flower." I think it will be something like, "For the process to work, she must not be de-flowered. How fortunate you have been so patient Goblin King."

Sarah nearly starts crying she finds it so disturbingly wrong. The word deflower, not so much Jareth having sex with her.

J attempts to introduce Sarah to the royal horses.

"Horses are evil bastards. Look at them, trotting about, eating hay. They look innocent don't they? But they're not. They're evil pricks. Right up there with squirrels on the scale of douche-y animals. THEY CAN SMELL FEAR JARETH! WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT THE ANIMAL? Can bunnies smell fear? No. No nice animals can smell fear." - Sarah on horses. Jareth will briefly be like, "But monty python said bunnies were evil..."

Lasagna should be a scented candle. - a REALLY drunk goblin

Conturing goblin king Youtube videos. "Fresh looks you can do with your eyeshadow this spring." "Don't get bitter, get glitter."

Jareth is crazy on time for everything and he gets anxious when people aren't on time.

Goblin's get itchy fingers around socks.

Jareth did not speak for 72 straight years once. That was a fun time for him.

"Why does everyone speak with a Cockney accent?"

"I don't know. Why don't you speak with a cockney accent?"  
\- Sarah speaking with denizens of the Labyrinth.

Do you know how high most people have to be before wishing to the Goblins sounds like a good idea?

Sarah insinuates that J won't be able to have children as his tights are too tight.

Jareth trying to unhook Sarah's bra but getting stuck and swearing his face off until neither are in the mood.

Jareth explaining rather terribly that it was completely fine to hit on 15 year old her because she was at an age where she could give birth. This makes things even worse.

J waking up in handcuffs and being super confused about how he a) agreed to being the one in handcuffs b) apparently REALLY enjoyed it c) really needs to pee and they can't find the key.

-There is an infestation of Underground Rodents. Much to J's sadness Sarah isn't afraid of them and doesn't want to be rescued.

-Food in the underground is weird as shit. Like the potatoes are hot pink and carrots are purple with green swirls. This makes it hard for Sarah to eat food at first while she is there.

J gets rather upset that future Sarah has decided to name the kids Alice (Alice in Wonderland) and Edmund (Lion, Witch, Wardrobe/GND reference) . Sarah goads him by saying she could have named the girl Dorothy or Wendy. The argument ends with Sarah screaming something along the lines of, "You keep your dick away from me!"


End file.
